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A new online tool could change the way that search engine optimisation (SEO) works in ranking websites.

Powerset Demo Video from officialpowerset on Vimeo.

Currently SEO conducted by engines including Google works by comparing key words defined by the searcher with the related words in online articles and ranking them in the order of the most viewed.

However, a new tool called Powerset could change this by comparing the natural language of the content rather than simply the key words. This is done by ‘unlocking’ the meaning encoded in ordinary human language.

The first Powerset was launched last month to improve the search process on Wikipedia. The system promises to give more accurate results and to frequently answer questions directly.

‘Powerset’s goal is to change the way people interact with technology by enabling computers to understand our language … We believe that now is the right time to begin the journey,’ the San Francisco company states.

In related news, it has been reported that physicians competing for the top internet search ranking have found it more successful and economical to take the SEO route rather than using expensive links.

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Google has just announced their latest upcoming application called ‘Google Knol’. It’s a tool for posting and sharing information in the form of articles. Much like Wikipedia, Google Knol just seems to be more social and focusing more on the author’s name, and of course its ‘Google’ branded. ‘Google branded’ means Knol will have more higher rank results than the Wikipedia, answers.com or other sites in search results on general topics.

Users can share, rate, suggest edit, add contents to articles. There can be more than one article on a topic from different authors, unlike Wikipedia. In Wikipedia, all aurthors edit/enhance one article per topic. Wikipedia is ‘topic centric’ where as Google Knol will be ‘author centric’.

Here’s the intro at Google’s official blog:
“The web contains an enormous amount of information, and Google has helped to make that information more easily accessible by providing pretty good search facilities. But not everything is written nor is everything well organized to make it easily discoverable. There are millions of people who possess useful knowledge that they would love to share, and there are billions of people who can benefit from it. We believe that many do not share that knowledge today simply because it is not easy enough to do that. The challenge posed to us by Larry, Sergey and Eric was to find a way to help people share their knowledge. This is our main goal.”

So is this a Wikipedia killer? In my opinion, it’s not going be an easy task for Google to takeover the popularity of Wikipedia any-time soon. They need something more jaw breaking (a feature, functionality or an idea) to do so. Well only time can tell the ‘actual’ story.. :).

More on Google’s Blog:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/encouraging-people-to-contribute.html

Constructive comments by Roger Ehrenberg, who’s not so optimistic about the success of Knol, is here:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/57457-google-knol-not-setting-the-world-on-fire.

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