1. http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9064698&intsrc=news_ts_head

2. http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050929-072711

The first article examines the innovative method of search ranking system created by Yahoo. The new Yahoo Buzz program will generate a “BuzzScore” to rate news stories, videos, and blog posts on the Web. The new version contains content from nearly 100 publishers and plans to open the site to all publishers. Yahoo Buzz will also allow users to submit stories to social networking sites such as Facebook and Reddit. The second article examines. Yahoo Buzz allows users to determine the ranking of articles and search results by assigning each a “BuzzScore.” The second article examines the new methods of search ranking, explaining that PageRank is only a small part of what goes into determining overall rank. PageRank operates on a network principle consisting of a “fluid that circulates through the network, passed from node to node across edges, and pooling at the nodes that are most important.[i]” It is an algorithm that assigns a weighting to each part of a hyperlinked set of documents with the purpose of “measuring” its relative importance within the set.

In class we discussed the difficulty of ranking in Web searches. The problem stems from the fact that keywords do not convey enough information much of the time. There are often multiple interpretations of the keyword searched and no way for a computer to know what exact meaning was intended. Advancements in ability to predict the item for which you were searching has led to drastic changes in the appearance of the Web. Google has built an empire off an original idea that proposed that a search engine that analyzed the relationships between websites would produce better ranking of results than methods which ranked results according to the number of times the search term appeared on a page, which had been the current method of search ranking. Since the early days of the Web, development of the most effective search engine has served a vital role for companies dedicated to this purpose. Yahoo hopes to compete with Google, which now serves 49 % of searches compared to Yahoo’s 24 % market share with this innovative method of ranking.[ii]

[ii] http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2156451