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Ziv Bar-Yossef, from Google, wrote a paper about sampling random pages from a search engine's index using queries. He explains some of the technical details in this video, including the utility of sampling random pages: comparing search engines, estimating the amount of spam, of fresh results etc.

He applied the results from his paper and compared Google, Yahoo and MSN Search. Here are three charts that show a comparison of the index size, how many dead pages are in each search engine and how fresh the results are. The charts are only an estimation, and they have a bias of around 10%. As you can see, Google doesn't do very well.

To find out more, watch the video, which is fairly long (1 hour) or skip to the results. There's also the paper "Random Sampling from a Search Engine's Index" (PDF), that got the best paper award at WWW 2006.

ComputerWorld reports that Google intends to extend Google Base integration into main search results.

"When users search for products on Google.com, the system will present them with another search box so that they can refine their query. After users refine their queries, Google takes them to a second page populated with product results from the Google Base listings service."

Google also plans to diminish Froogle's importance and to include ads in Google Base. Google recently redesigned Google Base, removed the search box from the homepage and added the tagline "Post it on Base. Find it on Google" to show you'll see more search results from Google Base on Google.com.

You can already see this integration if you search for "jobs" (it works in the US and in few other countries).



In the future, you'll search for a product like "dress" and customize its characteristics before actually seeing the search results.



It's important to note that Google ranks the results from Google Base according to their relevancy and using the metadata attached to each item. Listing products in Google Base is free.

When it was launched, Google said that Google Base is a service that collects information not yet in Google Search, but the real idea was organizing this information and making search results more intelligent using it.

Google finally complied to Belgian's court order completely. After removing several sites from Google.be and Google News, they show the text of the court order on Google.be.

"Also order the defendant to publish, in a visible and clear manner and without any commentary from her part the entire intervening judgment on the home pages of 'google.be' and of 'news.google.be' for a continuous period of 5 days within 10 days of the notification of the intervening order, under penalty of a daily fine of 500,000,- € per day of delay."

Google Belgium homepage now looks like a big wound on the face of the Internet.

Google has updated their experimental design of the search result pages, that shows the services in a left sidebar.

If you want to try it, copy this code:

javascript:document.cookie="PREF= ID=ad93daafaa747f70:TM=1158373640:LM=1158374016:GM=1:S=wNuiLiKHrkRnMZtf; path=/; domain=.google.com"

go to google.com, paste it in the address bar, then go to the preferences and click "Save preferences".

If you want to go back to the original design, just delete your Google cookie.




{ Via Googlified. }

Related:
Other design experiments
User experience at Google

Gnucitizen blog has an interesting post about Google Ajax Search API, a tool that allows you to integrate Google Search into your site and let visitors search Google without leaving your site. The post shows that this API could make life much easier for those who write malware and might facilitate their propagation.

"Web worms can use Google's infrastructure to propagate. If a malicious mind finds a vulnerability in WordPress for example and this vulnerability allows SQL Injection, a worm may be written to crawl blogs in search for this vulnerability and embed itself into everything that is vulnerable. Once a user visits an infected blog the worm starts another cycle.

Another worm might be able to crawl random sites and run generic Cross-site Scripting and SQL Injection checks and send the results to their master who will use them to release more advance worms.

Malicious minds can use Google technology and recently discovered vulnerabilities to create a BotNet that can be used for computational tasks, attacks, information gathering and pretty much everything else that the masters can come up with."

Unlike standard worms, JavaScript worms are not easy to detect and can spread rapidly . The author also thinks that in the future the web will be the new arena for malware, and we may need a web anti-virus that monitors visited web pages.

Related:
Cross-site scripting (Wikipedia)
Cross-site request forgery (Wikipedia)
Samy is my hero (MySpace worm)
More about Google Ajax Search API