If I can add to your post, I think we all have the intuition that metadata *can* be useful. If there’s no clear success so far, I like to believe that it is not because it is useless.
I think metadata will not improve significantly Yahoo “ranking” function for Web pages. However, there’s clearly something at the level of “query parsing”.
Try typing “montreal restaurant” in Google. One of the first hit is a map. It means that Google understands that “montreal” is a location and “restaurant” is a business. It may look simple but Query Parsing is a nightmare! Ambiguity is everywhere and there’s no context to leverage in a query. However, take a look at the series of patent by Google, Yahoo, Microsoft etc. about local search. It gives an idea of how they tackle problem.
In the case of this new initiative by Yahoo, I think the hope is to use similar techniques. And at some point, if someone type the query “Product manager in San Francisco”, Yahoo could put the LinkedIn profile of Amit Kumar in the hit list.
Hello Daniel,
If I can add to your post, I think we all have the intuition that metadata *can* be useful. If there’s no clear success so far, I like to believe that it is not because it is useless.
I think metadata will not improve significantly Yahoo “ranking” function for Web pages. However, there’s clearly something at the level of “query parsing”.
Try typing “montreal restaurant” in Google. One of the first hit is a map. It means that Google understands that “montreal” is a location and “restaurant” is a business. It may look simple but Query Parsing is a nightmare! Ambiguity is everywhere and there’s no context to leverage in a query. However, take a look at the series of patent by Google, Yahoo, Microsoft etc. about local search. It gives an idea of how they tackle problem.
In the case of this new initiative by Yahoo, I think the hope is to use similar techniques. And at some point, if someone type the query “Product manager in San Francisco”, Yahoo could put the LinkedIn profile of Amit Kumar in the hit list.