Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

We snuck one in there

Author:Dave Winer
Posted:1/19/1999; 8:41:12 AM
Topic:Writing for Searching
Msg #:2243 (In response to 2242)
Prev/Next:2242 / 2244

Good idea. We actually have that in a more subtle way.

When you click on a link produced by a search engine query you actually redirect thru search.userland.com. It records the fact that you, a sentient human being, picked this link in response to this query. It moves up in ranking as a result. Isn't that clever? And it required no more UI to confuse the user. That's an important part of it. I for one never have time to inform a search engine at a conscious level that I liked this one better than all the rest, so we snuck in a little heuristic to get the information from you without you even knowing we were doing it!

Check it out. Here's a query. Let your mouse run over the links, see they go back to search.userland.com. Isn't that funny?

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