The most recent development in search engine technology is latent semantic search, or what some people call “natural language.” The idea is to make a search for a particular term and the search engine will deliver results based on the context in which you use the term rather than focusing on specific keywords that might have several, or ambiguous, meanings. Will the search method have any merit? Will it be useful?
Some of us are hoping so. One of the newest search engines, which hasn’t gone live yet, has developed a natural language technology - latent semantic search - based on artificial intelligence, which promises to deliver the types of results that searchers have been longing for. The name of the search engine is Powerset.
Powerset is not yet live, however. It won’t go public until September 2007. Meanwhile, they have begun their beta testing, which they call Powerlabs. I was selected to be one of the beta testers, an honor I don’t take lightly.
I am looking forward to sharing my insights with my readers in the coming months as I use Powerlabs to discuss changes in the search landscape. I have high expectations so I come down a little on the harsh side sometimes, well, que sera que sera. If latent semantic search does not work as a technology, wouldn’t it be better to know it now as opposed to later, after we’ve all spent considerable time and money on its investment?
