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Shrewd Search Engines Know What You Want
Image Source / Rex Features
For better or worse, search engines have become the gateway to the Web. They help users to find information, advertisers to sell products—they even help hackers in their shady pursuits. So they are also the focus of intense research to variously help or hinder those parties.
The cut-throat competition among search engines has ensured the operators are keenly attuned to keeping their visitors satisfied. But serving up handy links is a tricky business, especially when we searchers often use ambiguous terms.
Demographic data can help, say Ingmar Weber and Carlos Castillo at Yahoo Research Barcelona, Spain. For example, they say that when U.S. women type in the search term "wagner," they are most likely to be thinking of the 19th-century German composer. U.S. men, on the other hand, may well be thinking about the makers of spray painters.
From New Scientist
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