teoma specific lore

~ Fravia's main search engines: Teoma ~

				Fast

Updated April 2006

"Teoma" means "cunning" in Gaelic
Why Teoma
Useful findings

Teoma has recently been bought by ask.

TEOMA [Only 194 results viewable]


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default to AND no nesting phrase searching: use "" use - for NOT use OR (or ORR) for OR

Field searching
intitle: Finds pages that have the query in the HTML title element. For instance: intitle: searching.
inurl: Finds pages that have the query somewhere in the URL (host name, path, or filename). For instance: inurl: searching.
site: Finds pages from the designated Web site. This is just a domain limit. Top level domain must be included. Paths and file names cannot be included. An additional search term must be used. Try a term from the domain name for the most comprehensive results. A search like "searchlores site:searchlores.org" will show how many pages there are for a specific site.
inlink: Should find pages that have the query somewhere in the anchor texts. Does not always work. For instance: inlink: searchlores

Best search engine for relevance, along with google and fast, smaller index, tough. Using its (advanced) "Date page was modified" options when searching, together with the "Geographic region" options you will be able to hear a quite good signal!
Example string: http://s.teoma.com/search?q=%22advanced+searching%22&qcat=1&qsrc=0&Search.x=27&Search.y=11
Askjeeves foray into real searching. Has an useful 'folder' collation à la Northernlight, recently updated algos, conncetrate now on 'topic authorities'. Do not forget to click the [Refine] options, and try the advanced search.

Try to understand that teoma algos are DIFFERENT than google's. Teoma breaks the Internet into "related communities". Here you do not need to find the correct angles for the best search, here you search and then REFINE (drill into your own search! One, two, three times if necessary... try it!)
Because you can refine, refine, refine... and that's it! This is NOT just a simple "search within these results" thingy: You will be automagically finding what you were looking for. No need to 'prepare' your search strings beforehand. Best choice for starting a query on BROAD topics. Teoma adds authority to search results through its specific algos (known as "Subject-Specific Popularity"), a sort of 'community based' approach, that takes account of community 'islands' (or 'clusters') on the web. Teoma finds all sorts of communities (including "bad" ones). Because Teoma is resistant to index spamming (a huge problem for Google). Teoma's usage of links, link context, page context, and community context, makes their algos quite "spamming proof".
Why Teoma? Because Teoma identifies query misspellings and offers corrections that help improve the relevance and precision of any search results. Because Teoma shows the context of search terms as they actually appear on the referenced Web pages. Because Teoma has advanced search capabilities, that allow to refine a query using specific criteria such as exact phrase, page location, geographic region, domain and site, date, search within results and word filter. Because they eliminated all crap advertisement banners and interstitials (popups) in January 2003 (they still have paid results in the SERPs, though). Because while Google's 'global linking' gives credit to every link equally, Teoma (should) instead find 'the links that count'... and count them. Because Teoma "creates on the fly clusters of web pages into topic specific web communities"


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Useful findings

Broad topics galore:
If you are looking for some broader topic, then you start using teoma and refine, refine, refine.
Out of beta in only in april 2002...
...and already a major contender! Started by a team of scientists from Rutgers University, Teoma was acquired by Ask Jeeves in September 2001. You may be interested in this essay that evaluates and checks ask jeeves' capabilities.
Teoma's database is stale?:
Does not seem to be updated as often as it should.
Paid crap smuggled inside SERPs?:
Teoma should by all means put a nice "check mark" next to the paid crap results they are smuggling inside the SERPs. Else people will stick to google and fast. Their "results" are padded full of commercial interests, this has to change, else there is no point in using Teoma.
Teoma's fantastic email spoofing possibilities:
http://sp.ask.com/docs/teoma/toolbar/emailpage.php, try sending bill gates' messages (bgates@microsoft.com) to your friends and/or enemies :-)
Poor boolean:
A very limited Boolean searching is offered. Teoma defaults to AND between search terms and supports the use of - for NOT. OR (or ORR) can be used for any OR operation, and it must be in upper case. No nesting is available, so advanced searching OR datamining is processed as (advanced AND searching) OR datamining.
Some limits:
No truncations allowed. Searches are not case sensitive. No cache. No unclustering (only the first two results per domain are listed).

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