How about a search engine that bases its results on how unique the information is on every one of them.
Every time I try to do an in-depth research on Google about some topic I open up 10 or 20 of the most relevant results, only to discover that at least 80% of the information is repeating itself in at least 50-60% of the pages.
One could write a search engine that compares the contents, groups the articles that have similar enough contents and only displays one article per group. This could work especially well in the case of longer searches with enough keywords.
Obviously, this is not a standalone product that would compete against the established search engines, but it could be built on top of them - a browser extension for example.
The problem is lack of semantics. Computers don't understand the content of a web page or article, and you have to manually parse it and make sense of it. You'll find 80% of what you need in 20% of relevant pages, and the remaining 20% in the other 80% of pages.
The semantic web is the solution. A system that understands content, understands what you know, and understands what you want. Then, all it has to do is show you what's relevant and necessary to the task you're trying to accomplish. In most cases, you won't have to actually do the task, as it will be automated.
I don't see any way around this. Changing how search engines work will still not let you find articles that complement each-other perfectly. And you'll still have to read more than necessary.
Yes, the problem won't be solved completely and you will still end up reading the same content more than once. But at least, by analysing the text the search engine could detect which articles are coming from the same source (e.g. inspired by the same press release or just telling the same news event over and over again) and group them accordingly. Currently, I don't feel like Google or other search engines are doing any of that (maybe they are, but if so, the results are not good enough).
Every time I try to do an in-depth research on Google about some topic I open up 10 or 20 of the most relevant results, only to discover that at least 80% of the information is repeating itself in at least 50-60% of the pages.
One could write a search engine that compares the contents, groups the articles that have similar enough contents and only displays one article per group. This could work especially well in the case of longer searches with enough keywords.
Obviously, this is not a standalone product that would compete against the established search engines, but it could be built on top of them - a browser extension for example.
Any thoughts on this?