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Google’s One Box Search

Google’s One Box Patent Explained

Danny Sullivan detailed the One Box for specific vertical results by Google maybe three years ago.

Bill Slawski does a great job of outlining Google’s recent patent application on the One Box.

This technology should be kept in the back of your mind as changes seem to be moving in that direction.

[via Search Engine Watch Blog]

Google is trying with this technology to return us not merely the page we want, but also to guess if we’re actually looking for an image, a video or a news item. A search for “Iraq” comes back with news items at the top, while one for “Mona Lisa” has images.

Something I take from this is the effort Google is putting in to making their search results more relevant. Anyone trying to make a living from so-called “Black Hat” search engine optimisation should not find this a comfortable read.

(What is Black Hat SEO? Simply put, it’s attempting to fool search engines into giving your pages a higher rank than would otherwise be the case, using strategies that break the spirit, if not the letter, of their webmaster guidelines. Black Hat techniques are rarely used to promote sites that offer real useful content and value since more honest marketing is generally just as successful in those cases.)

Another point to note is that Google is trying to give users what they want by second-guessing their intentions. With the vast amount of data at their disposal it is likely they’ll succeed a lot of the time. Second-guessing is a risky strategy if not done well: I doubt they’ll make the mistakes Microsoft did with its much hated Office Assistant, of being at once intrusive and patronising.

“It looks like you’re searching for pictures of naked cheerleaders. Would you like help with that?”