Real Time Search : 什麼是即時搜尋?

現在的搜尋業者已經把戰場打到Real Time Search, 到底什麼是即時搜尋呢? 有人說Twitter Search是Real Time Search, 是這樣嗎?

Danny Sullivan的文章”What Is Real Time Search? Definitions & Players“, 說:

For me, “real time search” means looking through material that literally is published in real time. In other words, material where there’s practically no delay between composition and publishing. You take a picture and seconds later, it’s posted to the world to see. You think of something, immediately tap it out on Twitter, and your tweet is shared almost as soon as you thought of it….That blog post or web page or news article took time to compose between the original thought and the actual publishing event. It didn’t go out in real time.

他認為Twitter之類訊息的search是real time search, 而Blog之類訊息的search就不是real time search, 因為Blog的內容需要時間去組成…. 筆者看得有點烏七八黑的臉上三條線 🙁

Danny Sullivan雖然是UC Irvine畢業的, 但可能不是技術背景出身的吧! 還是他是為了用白話來解釋給普羅大眾瞭解, 才會如此解釋呢? 還是可能筆者沒閱讀清楚而會錯意呢? 還請先進們指正囉!

根據Wikipedia的定義:

A problem created by the rapid pace and huge volume of information created by real-time Web technologies and practices is finding relevant information. One approach, known as real-time search, is the concept of searching for and finding information online as it is produced. Advancements in web search technology coupled with growing use of social media enable online activities to be queried as they occur. A traditional web search crawls and indexes web pages periodically, returning results based on relevance to the search query.

這個定義才算是說出了Real Time Search, 經過搜尋引擎抓取回資料中心、建立索引然後呈現的搜尋就不是Real Time Search

也就是說「沒有抓取/索引」下的搜尋就是Real Time Search

所以不是Twitter Search是Real Time Search, 而是因為大多去Search Twitter都是「沒有抓取/索引」的動作, 不是說所有去搜尋MicroBloggin都一定是Real Time Search

那麼問題來了…「沒有抓取/索引」如何去搜尋呢? 抓到資料的相關性(Relevance)如何呢? Google說他們有一套類似PageRank的演算機制來控制Real Time Search的品質

有無聽出弦外之音呢? 既然是Real Time, 就無法就內容去一一篩選, 因此重點就放在Authority(權威度), 也就是就網站來說的「網站信賴度」, 也就是權威來源的內容只要含有關鍵字串就會出現在Real Time Search, 並且不會排序, 抓到就丟到搜尋結果

Google、Bing跟Yahoo都加入Real Time Search的戰局, Google/Bing透過Twitter的Firehose, 而Yahoo透過Twitter API (目前看到的訊息是如此, 若有變更再另外更新)

到底最後的這場即時搜尋戰爭結果會如何? 就密切觀察了 …

相關資料
Relevance meets the real-time web
Google launches real-time search
Yahoo joins the real-time search parade