There is much talk of the semantic web as the next generation of internet. It is a little understood concept, and it is always assumed it will be seen as a new release of search – something dramatically different.

Wikipedia: making it possible for the web to understand and satisfy the requests of people and machines to use the web content.

The reality of the semantic web appearing might be different that we realise – in fact the advances in search that have quietly been implemented take us a long way towards the notion of search that works as humans do.

Example:

at google.com type in “7.8 kg in lbs” [witout the quotes]

Result = 7.8 kilograms = 17.1960565 pound

Dozens of other similar features at google – Search features

Try others:

100 canadian dollars in pounds

Result = 100 Canadian dollars = 58.8714763 British pounds

Site specific search tricks

So lets get more advanced – I tried these two searches in google.com:

1) rbc branch toronto

2) where is rbc branch in toronto

Search 2 is orders of magnitude more relevant with google maps and maps searches highlighted.

Site searches: Getting more sophisticated, I tried these:

1) on rbc.com I searched “branch toronto”  [no quotes}

2) on google.com i searched “branch toronto site:rbc.com” [no quotes]

Search #2 tells google to search for ‘branch toronto” only on rbc.com.  Guess what – #2 won out with branch information after a few rbc history things.  The rbc.com search [#1] displayed pdf’s after search item #4.

The research here followed reading this item at Googlewatch who noted that semantic strings were showing positive results.

Relevance to Bankwatch:

Search sophistication has moved ahead in ways the average person does not realise.  The people at Google are in fact scientists, and the notion that we in industry can buy / build a search capacity that comes even close is unlikely.  Better to ensure everything online at your web site is optimised and accesible to google (and others) and let them manage the heavy lifting.  Your customers will appreciate it, and you have one less thing to worry about.

Why not offer –

site:[search item]

to customers on your site?  Implementation instructions are here.  Here is my search for my site.