NWA-PCUG Newsletter Article, October 2009
BENEATH THE SURFACE: DeepPeeping the Web
Written by Jerry Goldstein,
Contributing Editor, The PCUG of Connecticut

http://www.tpcug-ct.org
jerryg (at) attygoldstein.com (click to email author)

This article has been obtained from APCUG with the author’s permission for publication by APCUG member groups; all other uses require the permission of the author (see e-mail address above).  

Last summer Google announced it had passed the one trillionth mark in its list of known and searchable Web pages.  

If you think Google does the best job of searching the World Wide Web you will be in for a big surprise. By ‘big’ I mean a search engine that goes way beyond standard search engines like Google, which only look at the surface of the Web compared to the vast, deep, and so far uncharted depths of the Web. I say “you will be in for a big surprise” because a deeper search engine is only in it’s initial research stages.  

Standard search engines only skim the surface of the Web. Kind of like you’re looking over the surface of the ocean, instead of looking into its vast undersea life. The plan is to create a search engine that will open 90% of the Web to searches.   

A study at the University of Utah is trying to find a way. The study searches typed text rather than the hyperlinks that the present search engines use. A beta version of DeepPeep is available at: http://www.deeppeep.org/.  

We have a long way to go but eventually almost the entirety of the Web will be searchable. Web pages exist already that tell you the best taxi fare, flight schedules, and shopping catalogs. DeepPeep wants to give you access to this information. A whole new way of searching has to be worked out first.  

Scientists have said that 90% of what we know was discovered in the last 50 years. DeepPeep is working out a way to get that knowledge to you.  

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