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Google: The Erosion of Relevance
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9:00 am
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10:00 am
Stephen E. Arnold, ArnoldIT.com
Google's PageRank, disclosed in a patent held by the trustees of Stanford University, has accumulated a crust of patches, enhancements and tweaks. Adjustments to PageRank have significant impacts on Web sites dependent on Google for traffic. Notorious revisions of the algorithm such as the spring 2005 adjustment are named, analyzed and dissected. The result of these adjustments has been increased emphasis on such factors as Google's "value / quality score", its "freshness" factor, and its requirements for site maps.
This presentation looks at each of these factors in the context of Google's parallel refinements in its algorithms for mapping advertisements to queries for AdWords and in its placement of ads in Web pages for its AdSense program. These parallel developments require that Google perform ever more fine grained calculus to balance objective results with the need to push and place advertisements so that the firm's revenue continues to increase. This talk asks and answers two questions: What does this mean for search engine optimization so that a site is indexed in Google? And what does this mean for the objectivity of search results?
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The Challenge of Mobile Searching
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10:00 am
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11:00 am
John M. Lervik, FAST
Boerge Svingen, FAST
Mobile devices offer both opportunities and challenges as search clients. The limits in display real-estate and input mechanisms make creating a good user experience difficult, while the availability of information about end-user ID and location enables functionality not easily available on the web. In addition, the fact that the mobile phone is always available allows for new types of interactive services. This presentation examines how user-created content can be combined with personalization to create new degrees of relevance and easier access to information.
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Web Vortals are Back, and Why
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11:00 am
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11:30 am
Raul Valdes-Perez, Vivisimo
In the late 90s vortals -- or vertical, topic-specific portals -- were in fashion, but they died out for a variety of technological and business reasons that are no longer operative today, given the advances in technology and business models. This presentation discusses five reasons why vortals are newly practical and desirable, and gives several examples of vortals that are live on the web.
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