7 ms·

I didn't submit this. I didn't know anyone was submitting it. Or I would have written a post about why it is different than other search engines. Better is stil

by drakaal 14y ago

I didn't submit this. I didn't know anyone was submitting it. Or I would have written a post about why it is different than other search engines. Better is still up for grabs because it is new. Samuru doesn't use link authority, it analyzes pages and matches what you queried to the types of pages and picks the best matches. Let me give you an example. You search for "How to Make cupcakes" Google says give me the pages that have the most inbound linkes (over simplification) that contain all those words. The winner is Brandon's Cupcakes (not really but play along for a minute) because it says, "We know how to make the best cupcakes, because we have been doing it for 25 years" That is not a useful result. Samuru on the other hand says "how to make cupcakes is a search for instructions" and it looks for pages that match the words, and are written as instructions. We weigh other factors, like is there an author associated with the article. Do they routinely write about the topic? We do this for reviews, products and other things as well. To be a full replacement for Google we need Driving directions, and image search and a lot of things. But in order to do all the other things we are doing we needed a search engine. (related content, analysis, speed testing, building a corpus of words) Responses get better if you search something someone else has searched or do a second search 30 seconds later. This is because we haven't deep indexed the entire Internet yet, and so we don't have all the deep data.

Matt_Cutts 14y ago
Hey Brandon, congrats on launching Samuru! I'll be curious what you think of running a search engine after being an SEO for so many years.
- jayzalowitz 14y ago
  Matt, any insight for people wanting to build new search areas out?
- drakaal 14y ago
  I am enjoying it. We went with the approach of how can we make this impossible for Brandon Wirtz to game. How can we make this about the content more than a popularity contest. Now that we are both in the business of stopping spam we should grab lunch sometime.
  - Matt_Cutts 14y ago
    I'll be up in Seattle in June for the SMX Advanced conference. Not sure if you'll be at SMX?
    - drakaal 14y ago
      Maybe. I'm in Phoenix because that's where Stremor is based, but I'll hit you up next time I am in Mountain View
sashagim 14y ago
So how exactly do you get better results 30 seconds later? How do you index more relevant pages? Do you... Google it?
- drakaal 14y ago
  We have a shallow index of pages. We do a Deep index only if a page then shows up in search results.
  - sashagim 14y ago
    thanks
danso 14y ago
Re: your portrayal of how Google works...An "over simplification"? It's just plain wrong. Google has, for quite awhile, not depended on sites containing all the words of a query...and natural language processing plays a huge part in analyzing intent of a query. I applaud this ambitious project but I'm skeptical you'll achieve what you aim for if you're way off the mark in understanding how Google is so successful...I mean, to even talk of replacing Google at this stage -- and saying it's just a matter of providing rich snippets and other ancillary features as if that was your engine's main deficiency compared to Google -- is quite bold and a little cart before horse, IMO - Edit: an example...I did a search for my own name, something I do habitually because I'm locked in an eternal struggle with a younger, better looking, more talented namesake for the top Google result. However, your search engine returns neither me nor my singing rival as the top result...instead you return the domain that is my first and last name with a hyphen, which is exactly the superficial result that Google was designed to avoid.
- drakaal 14y ago
  So you think Google knows if a piece of content is instructional? Or know that it is a Review? (not just has a rating) And you have to have all the words or a synonym of the words. But more importantly Google doesn't know what kind of content something is. Or what questions the content answers. Our system knows "this document answers what do aardvarks eat"
  - gibybo 14y ago
    >So you think Google knows if a piece of content is instructional? Yes. >Or know that it is a Review? (not just has a rating) Yes. >But more importantly Google doesn't know what kind of content something is. You don't think Google knows how to classify content?
    - drakaal 14y ago
      Then you think wrong. Google can't tell that something is instructions. That's not something they do. It may know that ehow has a lot of pages with How To on them, but it doesn't know if those are pages with step by steps for how to do something, nor does it know that Rotten Tomatoes has pages with Opinions and Points, and conclusions that make up a review.
raulonkar 14y ago
I am more curious about traffic. does your search engines provide traffic like google to site?
- drakaal 14y ago
  We will as more people use us. We think that because we provide a summary of your page rather than a snippet that we drive more traffic if you are deserving of it. Snippets don't really "sell" your content or your writing style. Summaries do. We think that by giving people more insight in to what to expect rather than part of a few sentences with the keywords you searched for in them, that we help users make better decisions about what to read.
drakaal 14y ago
Other features I should have mentioned: Threaded results. If a result is cited by other results, they will be grouped so that you can see the conversation across sites. Better Social Media integration. We do Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus not just Google Plus for showing authors. Voice Input if you are on Chrome 25 or higher. Results are returned with Summaries not Snippets. With that I am falling asleep. I have enjoyed answering questions on this an the https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5579336 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5579336 thread but 5 hours of it has worn me out. If you leave comments I'll promise to get back to them.
buro9 14y ago
Pre-Google, this is pretty much how search engines worked... by analysing page content and weighting that rather than the network of links around the page. Having just played with it, it feels both backwards and refreshing to go back to that. The results are different enough to feel good for the terms I used.
mrknmc 14y ago
This is really strange. I just searched for "how to ride a bike" and the first links from Samuru are completely useless whereas the first link from Google is exactly what I wanted, instructions from wikihow. How do you explain that?
pyre 14y ago
Quick comment on the interface. Looks like the initial page is optimized for 1024x768. I'm on a netbook at 1024x600 (even less so since I'm not at fullscreen). While I realize that I'm in the minority, it looks like the issue is everything is position absolutely. The only reason that the bottom of the page is cut off is because there is a bunch of empty space between the top of the page and the logo: http://imgur.com/vDFwY8b http://imgur.com/vDFwY8b I realize that this is a bit of a nitpick, but I felt the need to mention it.
nano111 14y ago
it is now very hard to get many Google results that contains all your search terms which is why I start to dislike it... for example it gives you "synonyms" or the terms are completly missing.... I sure will give yours a try
marcioaguiar 14y ago
I just searched for How to make cupcakes and the first three results were instructions of how to make a cupcake, including a video on youtube. P.S.: I mistakenly typed HOT to make cupcakes
lightonseo 14y ago
Hi, congratulations, I like really Samuru also if it's not perfect. I wanted ask you two questions : 1) Are you sure that giving a "bonus" to domains containing a part of a query is a good idea ? I understand the reason behind that, and know that you need time to turn off this "bonus" but waiting that moment are you really sure that is a good idea ? When I type "How to rank well on Google" the first results is www.google.com => http://www.samuru.com/?q=How+to+rank+well+in+Google http://www.samuru.com/?q=How+to+rank+well+in+Google Instead from the third positions the web pages seems to be great. 2) how works the search suggest ? I m a french user and in our language we have a lot of accents like "é è ù à". While typing a search query many people do not use them. When i correctly type a query with the accents, Samuru suggests the same query but without accents, this is wrong and that's why I m asking me about the provenience of data used by the search engine to provide these queries suggests. I really wish you to accomplish this project.
- lightonseo 14y ago
  sorry, I forgeted to say you that we're talking of you, not only in america but also in france http://www.lightonseo.com/moteurs-de-recherche/624-0423-samuru-moteur-de-recherche-semantique/ http://www.lightonseo.com/moteurs-de-recherche/624-0423-samu... I will be very happy if you can link to this page within the news list of Stremor website.

by drakaal 14y ago

Matt_Cutts 14y ago

Hey Brandon, congrats on launching Samuru! I'll be curious what you think of running a search engine after being an SEO for so many years.

jayzalowitz 14y ago
Matt, any insight for people wanting to build new search areas out?
drakaal 14y ago
I am enjoying it. We went with the approach of how can we make this impossible for Brandon Wirtz to game. How can we make this about the content more than a popularity contest. Now that we are both in the business of stopping spam we should grab lunch sometime.
- Matt_Cutts 14y ago
  I'll be up in Seattle in June for the SMX Advanced conference. Not sure if you'll be at SMX?
  - drakaal 14y ago
    Maybe. I'm in Phoenix because that's where Stremor is based, but I'll hit you up next time I am in Mountain View

sashagim 14y ago

So how exactly do you get better results 30 seconds later? How do you index more relevant pages? Do you... Google it?

drakaal 14y ago
We have a shallow index of pages. We do a Deep index only if a page then shows up in search results.
- sashagim 14y ago
  thanks

danso 14y ago

Re: your portrayal of how Google works...An "over simplification"? It's just plain wrong. Google has, for quite awhile, not depended on sites containing all the words of a query...and natural language processing plays a huge part in analyzing intent of a query. I applaud this ambitious project but I'm skeptical you'll achieve what you aim for if you're way off the mark in understanding how Google is so successful...I mean, to even talk of replacing Google at this stage -- and saying it's just a matter of providing rich snippets and other ancillary features as if that was your engine's main deficiency compared to Google -- is quite bold and a little cart before horse, IMO - Edit: an example...I did a search for my own name, something I do habitually because I'm locked in an eternal struggle with a younger, better looking, more talented namesake for the top Google result. However, your search engine returns neither me nor my singing rival as the top result...instead you return the domain that is my first and last name with a hyphen, which is exactly the superficial result that Google was designed to avoid.

drakaal 14y ago
So you think Google knows if a piece of content is instructional? Or know that it is a Review? (not just has a rating) And you have to have all the words or a synonym of the words. But more importantly Google doesn't know what kind of content something is. Or what questions the content answers. Our system knows "this document answers what do aardvarks eat"
- gibybo 14y ago
  >So you think Google knows if a piece of content is instructional? Yes. >Or know that it is a Review? (not just has a rating) Yes. >But more importantly Google doesn't know what kind of content something is. You don't think Google knows how to classify content?
  - drakaal 14y ago
    Then you think wrong. Google can't tell that something is instructions. That's not something they do. It may know that ehow has a lot of pages with How To on them, but it doesn't know if those are pages with step by steps for how to do something, nor does it know that Rotten Tomatoes has pages with Opinions and Points, and conclusions that make up a review.

raulonkar 14y ago

I am more curious about traffic. does your search engines provide traffic like google to site?

drakaal 14y ago
We will as more people use us. We think that because we provide a summary of your page rather than a snippet that we drive more traffic if you are deserving of it. Snippets don't really "sell" your content or your writing style. Summaries do. We think that by giving people more insight in to what to expect rather than part of a few sentences with the keywords you searched for in them, that we help users make better decisions about what to read.

drakaal 14y ago

Other features I should have mentioned: Threaded results. If a result is cited by other results, they will be grouped so that you can see the conversation across sites. Better Social Media integration. We do Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus not just Google Plus for showing authors. Voice Input if you are on Chrome 25 or higher. Results are returned with Summaries not Snippets. With that I am falling asleep. I have enjoyed answering questions on this an the https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5579336 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5579336 thread but 5 hours of it has worn me out. If you leave comments I'll promise to get back to them.

buro9 14y ago

Pre-Google, this is pretty much how search engines worked... by analysing page content and weighting that rather than the network of links around the page. Having just played with it, it feels both backwards and refreshing to go back to that. The results are different enough to feel good for the terms I used.

mrknmc 14y ago

This is really strange. I just searched for "how to ride a bike" and the first links from Samuru are completely useless whereas the first link from Google is exactly what I wanted, instructions from wikihow. How do you explain that?

pyre 14y ago

Quick comment on the interface. Looks like the initial page is optimized for 1024x768. I'm on a netbook at 1024x600 (even less so since I'm not at fullscreen). While I realize that I'm in the minority, it looks like the issue is everything is position absolutely. The only reason that the bottom of the page is cut off is because there is a bunch of empty space between the top of the page and the logo: http://imgur.com/vDFwY8b http://imgur.com/vDFwY8b I realize that this is a bit of a nitpick, but I felt the need to mention it.

nano111 14y ago

it is now very hard to get many Google results that contains all your search terms which is why I start to dislike it... for example it gives you "synonyms" or the terms are completly missing.... I sure will give yours a try

marcioaguiar 14y ago

I just searched for How to make cupcakes and the first three results were instructions of how to make a cupcake, including a video on youtube. P.S.: I mistakenly typed HOT to make cupcakes

lightonseo 14y ago

Hi, congratulations, I like really Samuru also if it's not perfect. I wanted ask you two questions : 1) Are you sure that giving a "bonus" to domains containing a part of a query is a good idea ? I understand the reason behind that, and know that you need time to turn off this "bonus" but waiting that moment are you really sure that is a good idea ? When I type "How to rank well on Google" the first results is www.google.com => http://www.samuru.com/?q=How+to+rank+well+in+Google http://www.samuru.com/?q=How+to+rank+well+in+Google Instead from the third positions the web pages seems to be great. 2) how works the search suggest ? I m a french user and in our language we have a lot of accents like "é è ù à". While typing a search query many people do not use them. When i correctly type a query with the accents, Samuru suggests the same query but without accents, this is wrong and that's why I m asking me about the provenience of data used by the search engine to provide these queries suggests. I really wish you to accomplish this project.

lightonseo 14y ago
sorry, I forgeted to say you that we're talking of you, not only in america but also in france http://www.lightonseo.com/moteurs-de-recherche/624-0423-samuru-moteur-de-recherche-semantique/ http://www.lightonseo.com/moteurs-de-recherche/624-0423-samu... I will be very happy if you can link to this page within the news list of Stremor website.