Comments on: Corporate search needs to heed workers, Google exec says

Focusing on what worker wants rather than on pleasing tech specialists would spur tool sales, Google's Girouard says.

[phillynets]

Google over D&B

Dunn and Bradstreet ate the dominant company search company and I would love to see Google beat them around a bit. ThomasNet sucks, Goliath stinks, and MacRae's (like the other two) can't seem to get past that they aren't book-based directories anymore. D&B's information is rarely correct, it's over-priced, and lacks flexibility (unless you fork-out more money Harris, Company Reach, etal. have not earned). Why can't the largest credit rating company manage to get financials correct?

I look forward to Google helping to improve company search methods and the industry as a whole. I hope half of the existing players go out of business, because they fail miserably at delivering any value to their clients.

Go Google!

[phillynets]

Google over D&B

Dunn and Bradstreet ate the dominant company search company and I would love to see Google beat them around a bit. ThomasNet sucks, Goliath stinks, and MacRae's (like the other two) can't seem to get past that they aren't book-based directories anymore. D&B's information is rarely correct, it's over-priced, and lacks flexibility (unless you fork-out more money Harris, Company Reach, etal. have not earned). Why can't the largest credit rating company manage to get financials correct?

I look forward to Google helping to improve company search methods and the industry as a whole. I hope half of the existing players go out of business, because they fail miserably at delivering any value to their clients.

Go Google!

No PageRank on Intranets

Ranking based on the number of inbound links was Google's great idea, which everyone else in the consumer search business now uses too. But there's no such thing on an intranet. So what could work similarly for this sort of site-specific search?

No PageRank on Intranets

Ranking based on the number of inbound links was Google's great idea, which everyone else in the consumer search business now uses too. But there's no such thing on an intranet. So what could work similarly for this sort of site-specific search?

[Rod Adams]

Access is another issue worth noting

One of the big problems in corporate search, even within
corporate boundaries, is that crawlers and indexing consume
resources and require controlled access.

Though it is certainly not apparent to users, search engines
work quickly only when there has been a lot of preparation work
done in advance to index appropriate material (including a
scheduling strategy that ensures timely updates without
excessive consumption of scarce resources), store the indexes
on fast drives, and ensure that links will work for the users.

Most valuable corporate information has several layers of
permissions and access restrictions that make the preparation
work more complicated.

It would be a lot easier to provide good corporate search if
information was more open, but that is not necessarily in the
best interests of the corporation and certainly not always in the
best interests of the holders of the information.

[Rod Adams]

Access is another issue worth noting

One of the big problems in corporate search, even within
corporate boundaries, is that crawlers and indexing consume
resources and require controlled access.

Though it is certainly not apparent to users, search engines
work quickly only when there has been a lot of preparation work
done in advance to index appropriate material (including a
scheduling strategy that ensures timely updates without
excessive consumption of scarce resources), store the indexes
on fast drives, and ensure that links will work for the users.

Most valuable corporate information has several layers of
permissions and access restrictions that make the preparation
work more complicated.

It would be a lot easier to provide good corporate search if
information was more open, but that is not necessarily in the
best interests of the corporation and certainly not always in the
best interests of the holders of the information.