Yahoo is beta-testing a new “intent-driven” search tool called Mindset. Enter your search term and drag a slider along a spectrum that runs from shopping to research. Mindset scores results based on whether the sites are primarily commercial or non-commercial. Colored bars under each listing represent the scores, with blue indicating a commercial score and orange indicating an informational rating.
The idea is intriguing, but my results weren’t convincing. With the slider dead center, a search for “futurosity” lists this blog as the first result. Slide it to the left (shopping) and the first result is for my book on the Amazon.co.uk site. But slide it to the right (research) and upstartblogger.com doesn’t come up again until number 30. Still, I give Yahoo credit for trying something different.
You can access Mindset here and read the FAQ here.
Via O’Reilly Radar.
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Interestingly, I’ve noticed that if you put the slider
only SOME of the way toward the “researching” end,
your page stays very high in the rankings (like
rank 6th when halfway between center and right side).
This seems to suggest that the best results are often
not at the very extremes. You want to preserve
SOME of the original organic rank scoring, so that authoritativeness and other factors are still part of
the new rank. That’s why “slider” probably useful.
I notice that LOTS of results matching your query
have very long orange bars (very non-commercial), so
the key to realizing your site should be an especially
informative AND useful site seems due in large part to its
authoritativeness (e.g. others pointing to it), not
just that fact that it, too, isn’t very commercial.
You’re right. If you move the slider slightly to the right, your domain stays pretty high on the list. I’ve noticed that if I move it all the way to the right, my domain drops off, but the listings are more non-commercial mentions of Futurosity (such as posts I’ve made to other forums). If I move it to the left, it does pick up the more commercial content (such as mentions of my book). So, actually it does seem to work pretty well.