There was talk in the Google Search Appliance group this week about the new inmeta query operator; I thought it's time to introduce this new feature to a wider audience.
In a recent release of the Google Search Appliance we added the inmeta query operator allowing search-users to easily create more advanced queries based on meta tag values. The appliance has had this capability for a long time using the requiredfields and partialfields parameters as part of the search API protocol. The inmeta operator allows search users to issue partialfields and requiredfields type searches directly from the search box (in the q= parameter).
The syntax is pretty simple:
inmeta:{meta_tag}inmeta:{meta_tag}~{meta_tag_value}inmeta:{meta_tag}={meta_tag_value}
For example, if you had content source with all documents having meta tag author and each document having a different value for author meta tag such as john, rajesh, mike, etc. A search-user may be interested in the documents that provide information about "Q3 Revenue" but restrict to only those documents that were authored by John, as John the CFO of the organization. To express such a query she would simply enter a query like:
Q3 revenue inmeta:author=john
Now, if you didn't know that the data was well formatted, and some might have John's full name (John Smith), and some might have his email address (john@acme.com) then you would want to use the following syntax:
Q3 revenue inmeta:author~john
As you see from the above examples, it is very easy to express your queries and perform advanced, sophisticated searches across structured, semi-structured, and unstructured information. We welcome the new inmeta operator to the search town!
http://search.corp.mycompany.com/search?q=query+string &site=all_content &client=default_frontend &output=xml_no_dtd &proxystylesheet=default_frontend
http://search.corp.mycompany.com/search?q=query+string &site=sales|marketing &client=default_frontend &output=xml_no_dtd &proxystylesheet=default_frontend
http://search.corp.mycompany.com/search?q=query+string &site=engineering.support &client=default_frontend &output=xml_no_dtd &proxystylesheet=default_frontend
"The Mini comes with everything you need to get up and running—the 1U rackmount appliance, a crossover cable, an Ethernet cable and power cord. For the truly challenged among us, Google even colored the cables and the slots they go in to, so that it's nearly impossible to make a mistake."
"It took me about 30 minutes from the time I cracked open the packing tape on the box to the time I did my first search. It was almost too simple—for a while, I wasn't sure I actually finished the complete setup."
"I am impressed with how quickly the box was setup. We all know that Google Search packs a lot of power and it's nice to see the company is able to bring that to small business users in such an easy-to-use box."
As a product manager it’s always fun to work on cool, interesting technology and then release it to customers. Today we shipped an all-new version of the Google Search Appliance with increased document capacity and some great new features. With this new release, the GB-5005 can now search up to 10 million documents while the GB-8008 can search a whopping 30 million. (By the way, if you ask nicely, we can build them even bigger! Just let us know.)
We also added some cool features such as date and number range search. So now you can restrict your search to only those documents authored between say, January 1st and September 19th 2006. Similarly, when you're looking for that special Digital Camera, you can restrict your search to cameras in the $250 to $1000 price range. My wife would perhaps like me to restrict this search to the $250 to $500 range ;-)
Finally something special for our international friends; we now have our administrative interface, product documentation and search interface available in an additional 10 languages, now totaling 16 languages: Chinese (Simplified & Traditional), Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, Spanish, Swedish.
If you are a customer, you can grab the update from our support site. If you aren't yet able to find things inside your enterprise, check out the Google Search Appliance and see if its right for you.
"We needed a product to replace our legacy search tool. It had to be simple to integrate with the SharePoint Services sites which make up the PSI, and be as user friendly as possible. An excellent search function is vital to the PSI and the Google Mini functionality fulfilled all the criteria," said State Services deputy commissioner of ICT Laurence Millar.
Well, let me let you in a little secret and some big news.
The little secret is that I've been using a "special" version of Gmail as my work e-mail client for a while now. Having used regular e-mail clients all my life, I was a little skeptical about the web mail solution. But it took me little time to realize the benefits. Not only the everywhere access (since it's web-based), but there's no more "foldering" at the end of the day, finding e-mails and attachments is a snap and... well, the speed! My inbox holds about 10 gigs of mail, and it's still as fast as when it was empty. Try that with your regular e-mail client!Now the big news… today we're announcing the launch of Google Apps for Your Domain, a combination of GMail + Calendar + Talk that small organizations can brand, customize and use. And this is just the start! We expect to release an enterprise version by the end of the year that will have the functionality larger organizations require.Isn't it time everyone at work loves their e-mail, just like they love Gmail?
"I can guarantee one thing: you will keep making more files, and losing track of them, every day. And whether you buy a search tool tomorrow or never, getting a grip on your files will save you time and money."
When it comes to evaluating technology products, who would know better than Ziff Davis -- with two dozen web sites, and between 11 and 12 millions unique visitors a month to popular destinations such as pcmagazine.com and eweek.com?That's why we're especially proud that when it came time for Ziff Davis to select a search product for themselves, they selected the Google Search Appliance."The goal of search is the same as the goal of our websites: connecting people to the information they need as quickly as possible," says Jason Young, president of consumer and small business for Ziff Davis Media. "We have made a marked leap forward with the Google Search Appliance by bringing more relevant content to the forefront."
It is a marked leap both in relevancy and in advanced search capabilities. Working with LTech Consulting, a Google Enterprise Professional partner, consumers can now refine searches and drill down within dynamically generated categories -- such as the specific price of a camera on pcmag.com.While search results are better, so was the process of achieving them. "Once you have the Google Search Appliance installed, it requires little – if any – human intervention," says Nino Tasca, director of Internet Technology for Ziff Davis. "That has saved us countless hours in comparison to our previous search product."
Thanks Ziff Davis, for yet another valuable review.
If you thought walking and chewing gum at the same time was hard, try walking and searching your corporate information! But wait...now that the new Google Search Appliance Mobile edition has hit the streets, you can do just that. Access your enterprise info while on the go, including searching your corporate network, databases, various content management systems, and your public website. You can even leverage our Google OneBox for Enterprise technology to get real-time info from a range of other business applications!
To make this even more useful, we’ve partnered with Motorola to integrate enterprise search powered by the Google Search Appliance with the next generation of the MOTOPRO Mobility Suite.
As a product management intern with the Enterprise team this summer, I've seen a number of Mini customers use its reporting features to optimize their site and search - with great results - and it seems like a no-brainer to me to enable our customers to go a step further, using Google Analytics. Analytics is a sophisticated and free web analytics product that provides both key integrations with Google Adwords and comprehensive reporting on visitor behavior, content performance and e-commerce. Google Analytics is an easy-to-use, web-based system designed to reveal how users interact with your site and to help you improve your web presence. More often than not, we're finding that the customers who are concerned about search performance and who are purchasing Minis are the same customers who are turning around and using real usage data to optimize their websites.
So after only about a month here, I'm really excited to announce the completion of my first project - the distribution of free Google Analytics accounts to all current Google Search Appliance and Google Mini owners!
Google Analytics will help Enterprise customers answer questions like:
"What is my most popular content, the new product pages for our big release or the company party pictures?""Which Adwords are the most profitable, and which campaigns are best?"
"How popular is our user registration process, and how often do those who sign up then purchase a product? Or are users just after the free content?"
"We've heard internationalization is a good thing – but where are our visitors coming from and what technologies are they using to access our site? Wouldn't it be neat if we could visualize all of these visitors on a world map?"
If you're a customer, you can locate your very own account code by signing into your http://support.google.com/enterprise account and clicking on the Profile link on the left-side bar. Once you retrieve your account code, go to https://www.google.com/analytics/home/ and click on the "Sign Up Now" link. Upon filling in your account details and pressing the "Create my account," button, you'll be given the ability to enter your Analytics account code. Also on http://support.google.com/enterprise, you'll find a brief document which summarizes the advantages of Google Analytics and how to pair it with the Mini.
With the combination of the Google Mini or Search Appliance and Google Analytics, I expect we'll see a ton more success stories like the great ones in these customer videos.
Keep checking back!
-Matt Kulick
For almost a year, the Google Maps API has been available for free, public-facing sites. A remarkable variety of websites (over 30,000 in number) have already integrated Google’s mapping technology using this API. Including our own. Check out the Google Mini Map here. These sites and organizations know the value of adding geographic context to data. But we’ve heard from many organizations that want to use Google mapping technology behind the firewall or for web-based enterprise applications.
Today, as part of Geo Developer Day at Google, we launched Google Maps for Enterprise. Now companies and government agencies can use Google Maps to help their business go geo. Now you can provide all the Google Maps features that users love -- such as the ability to drag maps in the browser and view satellite imagery. That means whether you’re displaying customer data on a map, managing assets in the field, or delivering a location-finder to your customers or partners, Google Maps integrates with your data to provide a truly compelling user experience.
(guarda sotto per la versione italiana)
In preparation for the launch of their new site, last week, they counted down the time to redesign. For those of you who aren’t fluent in Italian, ‘Investiamo nella ricerca’ means ‘We invest in search’ and ‘5 giorni 11.18.39’ is a countdown to their search launch – 5 days, 11 hours, 18 minutes and 39 seconds!
We really like their new layout and think it employs some design principles from another popular website.
...ed ora in italiano:
IWBank ha appena lanciato la nuova versione del sito web istituzionale interamente incentrata sulle funzionalita' di ricerca offerte dalla Google Search Appliance. Tra i leader italiani del trading online, IWBank dimostra come il motore di ricerca Google sia la modalita' piu' veloce e facile per permettere ai propri utenti di trovare le informazioni desiderate.
La scorsa settimana, preparandosi al lancio del nuovo sito, hanno fatto il conto alla rovescia in attesa del nuovo motore Google utilizzando il simpatico teaser "Investiamo nella ricerca".
Ci e' piaciuto davvero il loro nuovo layout e riteniamo che utilizzi egregiamente alcuni principi di design tipici di un altro famoso sito web ;-)
