Maybe so, according to search companies driven by the idea that even though searchers may use only one or two keywords, they provide clues that can be used to make search engines smarter. Pinpoint's technology filters out irrelevant links by finding sites that fit a specific profile. The profiles are created by a program that scans a preselected set of Web pages that have been considered relevant to a specific topic.
Most sites are able to make note of the sites their visitors are coming from.
Verity, a search-engine company in Sunnyvale, Calif., has been studying how this strategy can enhance its products, said Prabhakar Raghavan, chief scientist and vice president for emerging technologies. With the help of those surrounding words, search tools can do a more educated search. David Lowe, an engineering and information-retrieval professor at Southern Cross University in Australia, is interested in developing a system that develops profiles by tracking users over time. That kind of search engine could know that a doctor who often reads medical journals online is probably trying to find more medical journals. Calif. Over time, Purple Yogi learns what its users like and serves up similar pages, avoiding those sites about Bengali tigers that might otherwise pop up in a search for information on golf's top player.