Recently, there has been some fuss about Google’s page snippets showing inaccurate and misleading information. Google’s page snippets help the searcher quickly find relevant search results and are the parts of a search engine result page directly under the title of the page (in larger, blue text) in black. Snippets contain phrases from the indexed page, and the phrases themselves contain text that matches the keywords typed in Google’s search box.

In one incident, the first of its kind, someone typed in “Zwartepoorte,” a name of an auto dealer in Europe, and “failliet,” the Dutch translation of “bankrupt.” One of the results was a page from the site Miljoenhuizen.nl. “Failliet” was found in one section of the page and “Zwartepoorte” was found in another section. Google usually notifies the searcher that the snippet phrases came from non-contiguous parts of the page by adding ellipses between the phrases. This was the case in this incident (the ellipses between “BMW” and “Dit”), shown below. However, a legal battle ensued because the resulting snippet essentially said that the auto dealer was bankrupt, when that was not the case. The web master of Miljoenhuizen.nl ended up having to pay the consequences.

Ellipses are probably used to conserve space so that Google doesn’t have to put each phrase on its own line. They are also used to signal a break in text. The issue is that the ellipses are hardly noticeable nor distinguishable from other ellipses that may be in the original text. If they were a bit more noticeable, the average user might then investigate their meaning. Google could even add a helpful link next to the “Cached” link, such as “Composite Snippet.” It might look like this:

Another issue I see is that the definition of “non-contiguous” is left up to Google’s algorithm and their engineers. I’m sure there are known ways of how to deal with this potentially slippery issue, such as separating the text by some large distance (as it appears to Google’s algorithms, i.e. ignoring any Javascript and styling) or by putting them in separate HTML elements. These are simply ideas off the top of my head and not necessarily realistic ways to approach the issue. Especially if the content on your pages are dynamically created, it may be very difficult to circumvent some inaccurate snippet text being shown on Google’s result page.

However, there is a way to cause Google to stop showing all snippet phrases from a specific page on your site on their search results. You can find more information about this on Google’s blog post, The Robots Exclusion Protocol. Essentially, you would add the following meta tag on any page for which you want Google to hide the snippets:

Beware that, in addition to completely removing the snippet, this renders the cached version of that page (and therefore the Cached link) inaccessible to searchers.

With Microsoft’s latest search engine, Bing, launching yesterday, there has been a lot of speculation as to whether their “decision engine” will survive. Even with the heavy marketing onslaught reporting to cost over $100 million, the unveiling of this new and improved search experience may have some tough hurdles to overcome.

For instance, Google still controls a major slice of the search engine pie and while it would not be impossible to overthrow the search giant, it will definitely be an uphill struggle. With Microsoft’s “Live” search engine being replaced with “Bing”, they’ve essentially done some clever re-branding and may be able to pull from third place and possibly overtake Yahoo! in the search engine war.

Launched in 2006, Live Search never became the success that Microsoft envisioned. Microsoft blamed it on branding and its distinct lack of marketing. With Bing, Microsoft has added such features as search suggestions as you type, search history and associated search suggestions appearing on the left side of the results page.

As of June 2nd 2009, Bing has already run into some trouble as they have been blocked in China for undisclosed reasons. While this may have little effect on Bing’s overall success, it could be an ominous sign that it may not be an easy road ahead for the young search enterprise.

Google continuously strives to make certain that searchers have a positive experience, and recently further updates have been made to take personalized search results to the next level.

Earlier this month, an announcement was made regarding the release of “Show options…”  You can access these new options via the link positioned just above the search results.

When you click this link, additional selections are provided to the left of the search results, enabling you to further customize your search.
 
According to Google, this new feature is “a collection of tools that let you slice and dice your results and generate different views to find what you need faster and easier. Search Options helps solve a problem that can be vexing: what query should I ask?”

There are numerous ways for you to sort the data – by videos, forums, reviews, date, etc.  For example, if you are planning a Caribbean vacation, doing your homework before solidifying your plans is now a bit easier.  When searching for “Caribbean vacation”, you can easily view forums where people are discussing topics related to Caribbean vacations. You can also view related results from the past 24 hours, the past week, or even the past year.

Another great feature is Rich Snippets. “Rich Snippets give users convenient summary information about their search results at a glance”. Google looks for markup formats that can be added to pages of your website’s pages. More information on Rich Snippets can be found on Google’s Webmaster Central Blog.

One thing that still remains consistent is that even though searchers are able to customize how they want to sort the results (videos, reviews, forums, etc.), basic search engine optimization and social media tactics still hold true.  In order for your video to be found for keywords when someone selects the video link within these additional options, your video must be optimized with those keywords. If you want to appear for reviews, it will be beneficial to encourage customers to write reviews of your products or services.  As these constant changes are being made by the search engines, don’t forget to address the fundamentals of search engine optimization and even consider encouraging reviews and other user generated content that can help to propel your site upward in the search results.