[LINK] ABC News Critique

[Rick Welykochy]

Jan Whitaker wrote:

> At 03:38 PM 12/08/2007, George Bray wrote:
>> Here's a challenge for critical linkers, see if you can find anything
>> wrong with the new ABC News site.
> 
> Yeah, here's one I came across yesterday and submitted to their feedback 
> form. I wanted to find an article about the Angus and Robertson changes 
> that will disadvantage small publishing houses, causing the publishers 
> to PAY A&R to carry their books. I did the search on ABC news, got the 
> hits, but the links were wrong. Not just for the two stories that 
> related, but other non-related stories on the results page. The story 
> was only 2 days old, but gone. I have no idea why, and doubt I'll hear 
> back from ABC (might).
> 
> So I'll give it 9 out of 10 because I do like the new site (The Age, 
> too), but it still needs to function properly.

Here is an interesting exercise in searching ABC news.

First I thought I'd try googling. Here is the search string:

      Angus and Robertson charge small
      publishers stock books site:http://www.abc.net.au/news/

(all of the above in one line into the search box please)

      Result: *** two matches *** one from 2005 and one from this week.
      The relevant link is as follows:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/08/2000147.htm

      Probe urged into book store 'blackmail'
      By Emily Bourke
      Posted Wed Aug 8, 2007 7:43pm AEST

So I thought I'd try exactly the same search criteria on the ABC news
site, i.e. "Angus and Robertson charge small publishers stock books"

      Result: Documents: *** 30665 fully matching *** plus 0 partially matching

Hrmmmm ... "fully matching" ?
Let's try that again,using the ABC's recommended advanced search:

      Query: +Angus +Robertson +charge +small +publishers +stock +books -- Refine this query
      Documents: *** 0 fully *** matching plus 0 partially matching

Okay, one more try, since the word "charge" is not on the page:

      Query: +Angus +Robertson +small +publishers +stock +books -- Refine this query
      Documents: 1 fully matching plus 0 partially matching

Which produces the same link that google found.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/08/2000147.htm

Obviously the search algorithms in use by google and the ABC news site
are quite different.

Google has erred on the side of plausibility and finds the page, even given
that one word was not found on the page.

The ABC first errs on the side of inexactness and finds 30665 matches. Refining
the search by explicitly specifying all words as "required" (+word) and then
removing a word that I know not to be on the page finally finds the same page.

Google 1
ABC News 0

This is quite typical. I often cannot find what I am looking for on a website
using its own search facility. I then use site:whatever.com in google and do
find what I need.



cheers
rickw







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_________________________________
Rick Welykochy || Praxis Services

I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.
      -- Mark Twain