The Intute web service in the United Kingdom will receive an infusion of thousands of more documents at the end of the month as they construct a “more discriminating” search engine.
True algorithmic search may be as effective as it’s going to get for users of major search engines. The top three sites, Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft, picked up over 94 percent of US search queries in December 2007, according to analytics firm Compete.
Whether one is really better than the other, or even better than sites like Ask.com that trail them, may be a matter of perception. To the academic community, they all fall short.
Intute will open up an expanded index at the end of January, coupling an expanded document set with an approach that complements the algorithmic work with the human touch, according to PhysOrg.
“Google isn’t discriminating about the material it chooses – and with no systematic quality control processes it is very difficult for people to explore and discover trusted information,” Intute executive director Caroline Williams said in the report.
“But automation, combined with human value judgments, can be more responsive and dynamic in meeting the needs of higher and further education.”
Intute’s appeal will be to those doing academic research. Information being added to the project comes mostly from university sources, according to Williams, while various specialists look for more content across the Web to vet and place in the index.
“Google isn’t discriminating about the material it chooses – and with no systematic quality control processes it is very difficult for people to explore and discover trusted information,” said Williams.
