It occurred to me quite a while ago that a good deal of “false positives” would get eliminated from some searches if the search capability simply recorded what people clicked on and emphasized those items at the expense of those that were clicked on less or not at all. I’m not the only person who has had this idea. Shaun Ryan’s brother had this idea one morning, while experiencing a hangover, and I’m sure other people have had the idea.

Who is Shaun Ryan?

Shaun is the CEO of SLI Systems. What distinguishes him from his brother, me et al, is that he did something with the idea. He founded a company, built the software and set up a hosted search service for web sites - and the search service really is self-educating.

Different Types of Search

The idea of “search” is deceptive: Sometimes you search to find something specific. Sometimes your search activity is a matter of browsing - like browsing through a shop. Sometimes it’s exploration. Sometimes you want pin-point “semantic” accuracy, for example when you are searching through academic papers.

There are different search technologies that suit different contexts. A self-educating search is particularly useful for the retail web site situation, where customers come by looking for specific things - like a particular camera. What “learning search” does is connect the search term used to the item(s) that eventually satisfy the search. By doing this it is able to promote search results that are more likely to satisfy the searcher.

When you apply this technology to a web site, you end up displaying the products in an order that optimizes the search behavior of the majority of searchers, and ultimately you sell more. Hearing Shaun Ryan explain the technology brought to mind a time recently when I bought 4gb of memory for my Mac Pro. I went to NewEgg.com. All I wanted to do was buy memory. I didn’t even care much about the price. But New Egg’s search results completely defeated me. I actually couldn’t find what I wanted, got frustrated and went elsewhere - to MemorySuppliers.com to be precise. There, when you type in “Mac Pro memory”, guess what, it takes you directly to Mac Pro memory. New Egg lost business because its search technology did not work for me.

Ultimately, this is what SLI Systems’ search technology is about. It doesn’t just promote the most appropriate search results, it can also be used to create and dynamically update the navigation through a web site. It also monitors search activity, so that it can suggest alternatives search paths (related searches) and it can even build Search Engine Optimization pages, which will make it more likely that search terms entered through Google will hit the right page on your web site.

Although it is sold as a hosted service, SLI Systems will usually provide some consultancy in order to make best use of its technology. This isn’t software that you just link to. It’s software than you need to embed into the way that the web site works.

As far as I’m concerned, this is a technology with obvious benefits that should have been around a long time ago (but wasn’t). SLI Systems’ customers include NBC, Hollywood.com, tupperware, Next Directory and not New Egg.