IndustryGoogle Hires Orion Search Engine Creator; Gets Extraction Algorithm

Google Hires Orion Search Engine Creator; Gets Extraction Algorithm

Back in September, SEW Forums moderator Edel “Orion” Garcia
posted a
thread about a new search technology under development. It was coincidentally

called
the “Orion Search Engine” but not connected with our moderator.
Instead, it was developed by a university student who now, according to news
reports out this weekend, works for Google. Google’s also acquired his search
technology.

How great this search engine was is impossible to say. The press release that
inventor Ori Allon
put
out
last September was full of excitement, but so are plenty of releases
trying to attract the attention of investors and the media. The search engine
itself was never available for the public to use.

It sounds like Allon mainly developed an algorithm useful in pulling out better
summaries of web pages. In other words, if you did a search, you’d be likely to
get back extracted sections of pages most relevant to your query. From the
release:

The results to the query are displayed immediately in the form of expanded text
extracts, giving you the relevant information without having to go the website.

Such extraction could work well with moves by Google to expand direct answers
that it offers,
something
all search engines are doing. Of course, the more Google and other
search engines extract heavily from web pages without sending them actual
traffic, the more likely they’ll come under legal pressures of stepping over the
fair use line.

Via Threadwatch,
Google buys
search algorithm invented by Israeli student
from Haaretz has more details
on Google getting the rights to the Orion algorithm and confirmation that Allon
now works for Google. His university says that Yahoo and Microsoft were also in
negotiations for the technology.

Google
wins rights to Aussie algorithm
from The Age reports that Allon’s been with
Google for about six weeks. However, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates never
commented on the technology, to my knowledge. The Age just seems confused that
Allon’s press release mentioned public comments by Gates that there’s room for
improvement generally in search.


Google does deal for Aussie program
from the Daily Telegraph pitches that
the technology will revolutionize the way we search. Ho hum. Reality check, OK?
When Google

acquired
the three people from Kaltix along with their search technology
back in 2003, it hardly created a revolutionary change for us soon after.

By revolutionary, I mean a radical shake-up of how we search or a major
leap-frogging past other players. That didn’t happen post-Kaltix. We did indeed
see better personalized search come from Google, what I find one of its most
impressive features. But that’s an evolutionary change. It works on top of other
things Google has built. It doesn’t overturn and throw out the base technology.

So my reality check alarm is mainly for anyone who thinks Google’s going to
suddenly change because Allon and this extraction algorithm are now at Google.
He gives Google another good employee, and the technology will probably give
Google another evolutionary change that may improve things over time, rather
than instanty.

Want to comment or discuss? Visit our Search Engine Watch Forums thread,
The Orion
Search Engine
.

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