Posts Tagged ‘Indexing’
The internet search behemoth Google (that is both a noun and a verb) recently announced the new and improved way it will be indexing the internet and decided to name it after an addictive substance and before you ask, no not crystal methamphetamine nor Justin Bieber but “Caffeine”.
Allegedly, “Google Caffeine provides 50 percent fresher results for web searches than our last index”, and goes on to say, “it’s the largest collection of web content we’ve offered. Whether it’s a news story, a blog or a forum post, you can now find links to relevant content much sooner after it is published than was possible ever before.“
The main change to the way web pages used to be indexed and served as search results to a user can be explained in a simplified way as below”
“Our old index had several layers, some of which were refreshed at a faster rate than others; the main layer would update every couple of weeks. To refresh a layer of the old index, we would analyze the entire web, which meant there was a significant delay between when we found a page and made it available to you.
With Caffeine, we analyze the web in small portions and update our search index on a continuous basis, globally. As we find new pages, or new information on existing pages, we can add these straight to the index. That means you can find fresher information than ever before—no matter when or where it was published.”
As Google is aware that the majority of human internet users do not possess an engineering degree and struggle with even elementary spelling capabilities inside a search browser so Google decided to explain this rather perplexing change in layman terms via the use of an informative visual representation as below.
Yes, true story. This is the exact image they believe best explains this indexing change. From first glance it appears that a boring ordered list turns into a chaotic frenzied atomic whirlwind of books and cameras.
To some the old index resembles a carefully stacked set of papers being evaluated by a disgruntled man until somebody turned on a fan and sent everything flying around the room including the man’s books and camera (yet if you look closely throughout all this confusion he seems to have held onto his hand gun!).
In summary, this is one of the most pointless and incomprehensible visual representations of something that conveys no real meaning to anyone. It leaves me feeling unsatisfied, confused and inadequate like a donut without jam or for use of a better analogy like a Hawaiian pizza without ham and pineapple.
Discuss?
