Technological devices are developed to make lives easier. The internet serves the same purpose. Ever thought about how searching or wandering through the internet would be so much easier or simply entertaining if it was more interactive to serve the user? What about all the times when your mind blanks out and can’t think of the right term, topic, or subject of interest that one is looking for?
Searching through the internet can be difficult. Especially when the results only depend on the terms that the user inputs. Sometimes, it is helpful to find the exact results that are intended. Other times, it may come off as difficult. Currently, search engines such as Google and yahoo are only programmed to assist in managing website results depending on the level of relevance of the terms entered. However, this would defeat the purpose of using the Internet if the user is unable to find exactly what they are looking for. Maybe they entered the wrong term, other times it may be that they don’t have a general idea of what they want.
The idea to improve web surfing interactiveness is to provide a form of assistance for users depending on the purpose of the user using the device and subject. Especially when surfing the Internet or researching, it is difficult to pinpoint the exact topic of interest right from the start. I propose having virtual animated assistance that comes with the website browser that would assist with generating relevant topics and terms based on the user searches depending on how the browser is being used.
In the case of general browser applications, the user may select different moderations such as productivity mode, research mode, and other situations. Users are able to make setting preferences such as timer and blocked sites in these cases. In both the productivity and research mode, it would generate terms based on research topics that would be fixed to accommodate the topic being searched. Each time the user enters more terms, sharing similarities in each attempt, a program would be used in the backend to narrow down the search topic of interest. However, the different types of user interactions are only suggestive ideas for long-term, futuristic plans.
Search Engine Functions: Sorting and Finding Relevant Websites
Firstly, it is important to take note of how search engines work. Search engines are designed to search, understand, and organize the information gathered from the Web to create a series of relevant results for the user on the screen. To do this, the search engines go through three different procedures: crawling, indexing, and ranking. Search engine crawling is a process used to identify and gather content links that are relevant to what is being searched.
The search engine would then index databases to find the most suitable sites before ranking them by order of ‘relevance’. But how is this relevance defined? Search engines such as Google filter results that are irrelevant, of low quality, or consist of robot meta directives, preventing interactions with the server.
Search engines typically use Robots.txt files located in the website root directory that would help determine the search engines being used and manage the speed of the searches. The bots are used to determine which sites are most suitable.
Without changing the current system and procedures of navigating the web, I hope to implement a program that would allow the collecting of search databases within a certain range of time to analyze searches per session. Just like how Google photos have suggestive terms for photos, the program would function similarly. However, the application would also have additional elements that would help suggest similar or more relevant terms.
Sources
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/guidelines/how-search-works
https://serpstat.com/blog/what-is-page-relevance-and-how-is-it-determined/
