-
Improve Highlight Button
Users of the Google Toolbar may be familiar with the Highlight
option, which highlights all occurrences of the current
search-word(s) in the current page. This handy feature could be
made more useful if it could highlight partial matches.
For example, if the search string "link button" was entered, in
addition to highlighting every occurance of both 'link' and
'button', Google would highlight occurances such as 'links' or
'buttons'.
-
- Figure: Google highlight option.
-
Watch a Thread
Google Groups is a service that allows you to browse, create and
reply to newsgroup postings.
This service would be greatly enhanced if it allowed the user to
specify one or more threads to be 'watched'. Whenever a thread
changes, a message can be sent to an email address provided by the
user, which can detail not only the thread that has changed, but
where the changes have taken place (perhaps using highlighting).
-
- Figure: Browsing Google Groups
-
Send error report about broken links
Wouldnt it be a great world if there were NO BAD links in the
world? Well I have a web site with a lot of links to other sites
Google has this list in their database. Google also have a
database of all pages in the world. So Google could help with the
worlds broken links, by offering a service where they send a
weekly email (the web master) of links on your site that have gone
bad.
-
Wildcard search
Google please support normal wildcards like:
-
- Figure: Normal Google search
-
- Figure: Google doesn't support wildcard search
Not this strange style:
-
- Figure: Google supports synonym search using the symbol
-
Fix the Google API
As it stands, the results from the Google API do not closely match
the results that an end user would experience. The Google API
should be using the same data source as what a normal user would
see. Alternatively, the API should be able to specify which server
it uses to return search results.
For example - the Google API code below only hits the SSW web site
after searching through 10 results (including several from
Microsoft that aren't in the web search) for the keyword "Exchange
Reporter". In a web search the SSW web site comes first. The two
should be consistent. If the API is not accurate, then it is
effectively useless for gathering ranking statistics.
private DataSets.ResultHistoryDataset GetRanking(string searchValue)
{
// Create a Google Search object
GoogleSearchWebService.GoogleSearchService s = new GoogleSearchWebService.GoogleSearchService();
string key = "XXXXXXXX";
int maxResults = 10;
int rank = 0;
int positiveHitCount = 0;
int currentIndex = 0;
int page = 0;
// Invoke the search method
//Google.GoogleSearchResult r = s.doGoogleSearch(key , searchValue + " inurl:www.ssw.com.au",
for( page = 0; page < 3; page +=1)
{
GoogleSearchWebService.GoogleSearchResult r = s.doGoogleSearch(key , searchValue ,
(page * maxResults) + 1 , maxResults, true , "", false, "","","");
// Extract the estimated number of results for the search and display it
foreach (GoogleSearchWebService.ResultElement resultElement in r.resultElements)
{
currentIndex ++;
if (resultElement.URL.StartsWith("http://www.ssw.com.au"))
{
positiveHitCount ++;
if (rank == 0)
{
rank = currentIndex;
}
}
}
//int estResults = r.estimatedTotalResultsCount;
//this.label1.Text = Convert.ToString(estResults);
}
this.resultHistoryDataset1.ResultHistory.AddResultHistoryRow (searchValue, rank,positiveHitCount, maxResults, page , DateTime.Now.Date) ;
return this.resultHistoryDataset1;
Figure: Sample API code - this returns different results from a
user performing a web search
-
Get rid of the PageRank Bar and Fix the Duplicate Content Filter
Google is too easily manipulated. All you need to do these days is
to create a site and get as many inbound keyword text links as you
can to get a high page rank with the Google bar.
Take our site for an example, our website stays on topic as much
as possible and only links to websites that are relevant and
decent. On the other hand, my competition employs spam tactics
"DELUXE", making it very easy to get links when you don't care
where they come from.
The result is that I slip a little further every month while my
spam competition maintains top positions.
Also many top position holders in my industry have multiple
duplicated link pages.
Current Solution: I must link to spam to survive, risking my
future when Google picks this up.
My preferred solution: Google get rid of that dam green bar and
sort out your duplicate content filter!
-
Users should not have to deal with plurals (and especially
apostrophes eg. xx vs xx's" vs xxs)
I entered "Greg Low DMV", This what came back:
Where is the web cast?
Google result for "
Greg Low DMV site:microsoft.com
" = 0 hits. (BAD -- find the plural)
Google result for "
Greg Low DMVS site:Microsoft.com
"= the Webcast (SHOULD NOT NEED TO DO THIS)
Google result for "
Greg Low DMV's site:Microsoft.com
" = 0 hits. (GOOD) (if you put an apostrophes it should respect
you are being exact)
if you search DMV -- it should find DMVs and DMV's
-
Subscribing to the Google Groups
Fox example, "microsoft.public.sqlserver.server" group.
Can you change the subject from
Subject: 41 new messages in 13 topics - abridged
to
Subject: microsoft.public.sqlserver.server
With proper subject , threading inside Outlook can work. Currently
with changing subjects every day breaks threading.
Rules to better email
for more info.
-
Suggest gmail to support "propose new time" requests which
currently is not working.
-
- Figure: Gmail need to be add support "Propose new time"
-
Gmail - Support pasting an image from a clipboard
Suggest gmail to support pasting an image from a clipboard, like
the same suggestion for TFS
.
-
-
- Figure: Add a "Filter" text box on this menu