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I recently wrote an essay about this search engine, and its ranking algorithms. Initially Marginalia used an interesting variant of PageRank discussed in the o

I recently wrote an essay about this search engine, and its ranking algorithms. Initially Marginalia used an interesting variant of PageRank discussed in the original paper, called Personal Pagerank.[1] Currently pages are ranked with BM25. I think Personalized PageRank is still used for a new feature of Marginalia which is ranking pages based on similarity. I think this is already integrated into the website but there used to only be this testing page: https://explore2.marginalia.nu/ https://explore2.marginalia.nu/ In any case I have a lot of respect for the creator. Marginalia has seen a lot of growth and it's been interesting reading the blogposts.[2] [1]: https://www.marginalia.nu/log/26-personalized-pagerank/ https://www.marginalia.nu/log/26-personalized-pagerank/ [2]: https://www.marginalia.nu/log/ https://www.marginalia.nu/log/

_emacsomancer_ 2y ago
where is the recent essay?
- Levitating 2y ago
  It was for a university assignment, I am not sure if I could or should share it.
  - hooli_gan 2y ago
    If you don't share the task description or other materials provided by your university, I don't see the problem with sharing your essay. (Not a lawyer)
    - hmlwilliams 2y ago
      It's a sure fire way to get your uni submission incorrectly flagged as plagiarism. How straightforward it is to prove you're the original author varies by institution.
      - em-bee 2y ago
        once the essay is already graded, it should not matter. and less as time passes. on the contrary i thought any essay, paper or report written for uni or school can be considered for publication in some form. not everything is worth publishing of course, but if it is, talk to your supervisors about it. http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/65166/ddg#65208 http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/65166/ddg#65208
  - _emacsomancer_ 2y ago
    Ah, that makes sense - didn't really it was a uni thing.
marginalia_nu 2y ago
I'm using PPR for domain rankings, but it's a very weak factor. It mostly affects the physical ordering on the results in the index, and given that queries have a timeout they'll execute for, it makes it so that higher ranking results are discovered first. Though in general, as I mentioned, this is a weak effect. Explore2 and the website discovery tools now built into the search engine are using cosine similarity of the incident link vectors. I wrote a blog post about the technique called "Creepy Website Similarity" available :-) https://www.marginalia.nu/log/69-creepy-website-similarity/ https://www.marginalia.nu/log/69-creepy-website-similarity/
- jmholla 2y ago
  Two things I've noted with the redesign (I hope it's ok to share it here): * I couldn't find the random button. But, I used the old site to find the correct URL. [0] * The random URL on the old site is broken. [1] [0]: https://marginalia-search.com/explore/random https://marginalia-search.com/explore/random [1]: https://old-search.marginalia.nu/explore/random https://old-search.marginalia.nu/explore/random

_emacsomancer_ 2y ago

where is the recent essay?

Levitating 2y ago
It was for a university assignment, I am not sure if I could or should share it.
- hooli_gan 2y ago
  If you don't share the task description or other materials provided by your university, I don't see the problem with sharing your essay. (Not a lawyer)
  - hmlwilliams 2y ago
    It's a sure fire way to get your uni submission incorrectly flagged as plagiarism. How straightforward it is to prove you're the original author varies by institution.
    - em-bee 2y ago
      once the essay is already graded, it should not matter. and less as time passes. on the contrary i thought any essay, paper or report written for uni or school can be considered for publication in some form. not everything is worth publishing of course, but if it is, talk to your supervisors about it. http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/65166/ddg#65208 http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/65166/ddg#65208
- _emacsomancer_ 2y ago
  Ah, that makes sense - didn't really it was a uni thing.

marginalia_nu 2y ago

I'm using PPR for domain rankings, but it's a very weak factor. It mostly affects the physical ordering on the results in the index, and given that queries have a timeout they'll execute for, it makes it so that higher ranking results are discovered first. Though in general, as I mentioned, this is a weak effect. Explore2 and the website discovery tools now built into the search engine are using cosine similarity of the incident link vectors. I wrote a blog post about the technique called "Creepy Website Similarity" available :-) https://www.marginalia.nu/log/69-creepy-website-similarity/ https://www.marginalia.nu/log/69-creepy-website-similarity/

jmholla 2y ago
Two things I've noted with the redesign (I hope it's ok to share it here): * I couldn't find the random button. But, I used the old site to find the correct URL. [0] * The random URL on the old site is broken. [1] [0]: https://marginalia-search.com/explore/random https://marginalia-search.com/explore/random [1]: https://old-search.marginalia.nu/explore/random https://old-search.marginalia.nu/explore/random