If you could merge all the search engines...

[brian.mark]

If you could merge all of the search engines into one monster engine with the best algorithm ever, what engine would it most resemble, what concepts from each engine would you employ, and what would be your best spam fighting technique?

I would personally keep hilltop, hubs & authorities, and toss most of the rest. Link popularity has got to either go or be re-invented. The results I would want to resemble Google's only in look and feel. I'd of course want them to have less spam and list my own sites higher :-)

The final thing I'd do is have different topic grouping show from an initial search. In a search for Eagles, I'd have the musical group, animals, sports teams, etc. showing, then make the user show intent by narrowing the results. Of course, some default results would be shown, but only below those top level narrowing links.

Now, what would you do?

Brian.

[ctabuk]

I would combine Teoma and Google, but with Images.
For spam - combine G mail with Google ToolBar, with automatic Adaware updating. Teoma/Ask Jeeves is brilliant on Legal stuff, Housing Acts etc, believe it or not, I do work for a living, and I'd be lost without Ask Jeeves.
What would it look like, I have not got the foggiest!

[hmoulding]

If you could merge all of the search engines into one monster engine with the best algorithm ever, what engine would it most resemble, what concepts from each engine would you employ, and what would be your best spam fighting technique?

I suspect it would most *resemble* Google, because I appreciate the simple, no-nonsense interface, as well as the speedy response and the choice of search options.

In terms of search algorithms I'm thinking some sort of dynamic page ranking algorithm that relies on user feedback: whatever the current ranking weights are, a user should be able to indicate if a given result was a good fit or not. Perhaps the user's link choices should also be feedback. As far as I know, none of the search engines out there employ that sort of feedback.

I also use a slow dial-up line, so I'm inclined to prefer light-weight pages to the monsters that toss graphics around as if bandwidth were free. I wish I could actually specify page weight as a search sort preference. That should also relegate PDFs and the like to the bottom of the page ranks.