Search Engine Optimization

http://www.wolframalpha.com/

Wolfram Alpha is the new search engine launching in May 2009. The founder of Wolfram Alpha brands it as “computational knowledge engine” which allows easy answers to any questions. I have not had a chance to review it first hand, but submitted an application for review.. For now, we’ll look at Danny’s review of the search engine on Search Engine Land.

Amazing Data

Wolfram Alpha promises to deliver amazing data to queries, as opposed to traditional set of blue links. In a demo demonstrated to Danny Sullivan, Wolfram Alpha gave detailed answers to queries such as |newport beach”, “what is the GDP of France” and more (Screenshot below).

The results look very impressive, however the big concern – are the queries pre selected for the demo? If so, then will the search engine survive uncontrolled flow of queries, where the team doesn’t have the luxury of choosing the best looking results for presentations sake. This is the real test that search engines must withstand, and I hope Wolfram Alpha gets through (details discussed in Danny’ article).

Where Does Wolfram Alpha Get Data?

Wolfram Alpha does not spider the web like other search engines. Instead it gets data from various sources and then sorts it out. Wolfram also employs 150 staff to ensure quality control:

“Sometimes there will be data that’s incredibly wrong, ” Wolfram said, giving an example of a lake database with latitude and longitude coordinates that, when Wolfram Alpha plotted it against a map, turned up some surprises.

“Someone did the obvious test and plotted the lakes and found lots of them in the middle of oceans. Things that people have never checked, as we start to do visualization and analysis, it’s remarkable how often we find things that were obviously wrong but not noticed before because they were in printed form or not looked at in aggregate,” he said.