Google Lab’s product provides structured search with Google Squared

Search takes a new direction of being more structured with Google Squared!


I was really very eager to pen down my views about Google Squared (launched in May 2009), the new search tool, but I was fully occupied with my work schedule and I missed to post on time. Google Labs project, Google Squared is an attempt by Google to offer users more structured data through web. It works by extracting data from web pages and presenting them in search results as a square in online spreadsheets. The format of search results displayed is a spreadsheet, in grid derived from query, but no list of links to web pages as in normal search. Google is looking for data structures on the web that imply facts, and then grabbing it for Squared results.

In Google labs product, Google Squared first a user enters search term and clicks the square it button. And you get results. In some cases to make your search more closer to your requirements, Google asks user to input certain values to give you more relevant results.

For example: SEO Tools, google squared gives the following result:

But for search term Google Acquisitions (Google Squared could not automatically build the square), you need to provide more information to Google to build the square, like year, etc. example:





How squared results are derived??? Google gathers data structures on the web that is based on facts to generate squared results. Google Squared is a try to make massive data on the Web simpler to access by placing it into simple tables. Wolfram alpha is a challenge for Google. Wolfram alpha is a knowledge mining search engine by a Computer scientist Stephen Wolfram. This search engine tries to make web search knowledge computable.

Wolfram Alpha was also launched in May 2009, it parses information into its own database but currently can store upto 10 terabytes of information. Data Wolfram Alpha search engine is categorized into various fields including physical sciences, technology, geography, weather, cooking, business, music, etc. to provide users with relevant answers. Its language interface is very different as check the variation user use to ask the question. Wolfram Alpha’s vision is to create a system which can do for formal knowledge (heuristics, algorithms, rules, methods, theorems, etc.) what search engines like Google have done for informal knowledge, such as text and documents.