Why is it I can use plain language when doing a Google search yet LOGOS does not offer the same ability? Just asking.
give us some examples - but likely how indexing is done
Why is it I can use plain language when doing a Google search yet LOGOS does not offer the same ability?
The basic answer is because Google has spent millions upon millions in R&D. Google (and other search engines) continue to dump boatloads of money into developing and tweaking their algorithms to stay in front of the competition.
It should also be noted: The searches occur on THIER servers, not your computer.
That's been my question all these years...
I don't know how much FL has spent on R&D over the years, but probably also at least in the millions? What we're getting from FL is something that's getting more and more complex, bewildering, and cumbersome with each new release (both the search syntax and the user interface, see other recent related threads). But what we're getting from Google is becoming simpler, clearer, and more useful every year.
So perhaps FL's fundamental direction in their R&D investment is maybe... wrong-headed? That might be too strong of a word, but they're certainly gearing more and more toward the Bible super-experts and farther and farther away from the lay users.
How do we convince our friends and brothers and sisters to spend thousands of dollars on FL when they can do Bible searches much more simply, effectively, easily, and accurately with free Google?
Yes, Google probably is spending more than FL and have more massive servers than FL. But with all due respect, Google's corpus is billions of web pages, whereas FL's corpus is perhaps less than 30,000 books, and its core corpus is... 66 books.
I suspect the answer is royalties. There's englishy query engines galore, some being more intuitive than others. Putting them on a server to thousands of users costs a pretty penny. But not that difficult, ignoring the headaches of 3rd party software. Of course, then you have german, french, etc.
And rolling your own is a fools errand. Absent spelling error correction, and synonyms (both low-hanging friut), imprecise results is the problem, that even Google doesn't attempt. When you use a Google query, you expect 'maybe'. In Logos, you want 'exactly'. I have yet to meet the Logosian that accepts 'maybe'. The current fuzzy thing is a maybe ... you're not sure what you're looking for until you see it.
I'd suspect the middle-ground (Logos current development) of fill-in choices will do well. Especially if they include hints, similar to Apple and MS (which Logos almost never does, oddly enough).
The basic answer is because Google has spent millions upon millions in R&D. Google (and other search engines) continue to dump boatloads of money into developing and tweaking their algorithms to stay in front of the competition. It should also be noted: The searches occur on THIER servers, not your computer.
And in Google you are limited to plain text searches - no morphology, no grammar, no semantic role, no syntax, no assignment of antecedent to pronouns ... IIRC you can't even specify within a range of words or characters.
Dit I miss something? I don't buy Logos cause I wanna search the Internet...[;)]
I must say searching in Logos can be extremely challenging. I really don't understand it much although I have been a Logos user for many years. With all the <> and() and WITHIN..,." "..... I get very confused.
Agreed. For technical searches Logos is vastly superior.
But if I'm trying to find a verse that I only vaguely remember, a Google search (with the words I remember or think I remember) will almost always get me the reference I need when I will often get zero results from a Logos search.
Logos needs fuzzy search back. "Match all word forms" is insufficient: I've had cases with zero results return because I entered the search term "God" when the verse said "Lord" instead.
A form of fuzzy search is currently being beta tested
You might find the Advanced Search training videos helpful. They are currently in pre-pub at 50% off.
Don't get me wrong, but I am kind of put out that I have to pay $50.00 in order to learn how to use their software. For such a central part of the Logos software, searching should not be that complicated that I have to get advanced training. Thanks for your reply.
Why is it I can use plain language when doing a Google search yet LOGOS does not offer the same ability? The basic answer is because Google has spent millions upon millions in R&D. Google (and other search engines) continue to dump boatloads of money into developing and tweaking their algorithms to stay in front of the competition. It should also be noted: The searches occur on THIER servers, not your computer.
It's a fair question, but Google's revenue for the second quarter of 2016 was $25B (with a . That's well over 1000x Logos' annual revenue: we simply don't have the enormous resources they have. Likewise a great deal of Google's search power comes from very large data:
(Yes, i used Google to gather these statistics [:)])
That being said, we certainly recognize that search is fundamental for most users, and that we need to do more to make it simpler, more effective, and more powerful (all at the same time!). Bringing back Fuzzy Search (coming in the next release for Logos Now members) is an important step in that direction for one important use case: finding verses whose words you don't quite remember or that you learning with different wording. We've got more under consideration or development.
I see Google (along with the other big search companies) as our most important business competitor (along with Kindle and ignorance). We look closely at their technology and sometimes emulate it (for example, our Atlas product was a deliberate step past traditional views of static Bible maps, toward more dynamic, zoomable interfaces). And, to be fair, Google has opened up access to many technologies that companies our size could never afford to develop, which is great: so our technological reach is increasing all the time.
I frequently use a browser to find verses I remember but can't recall their specific location or precise wording.
It would be nice to do that within Logos, but it's not essential. Having a few engines accessible would be the way to go.
Thanks to everyone who responded to my post. I certainly gleaned much from what all the respondents had to say. I am enjoying my LOGOS experience, but know I am only using a little of what LOGOS offers. As time marches on I can only hope my skill set improves. I might note, my Bible study is for personal growth as I am not in the pulpit nor do I formally teach. Blessings to all.
I would much prefer a good Boolean logic search engine than one that tried to guess what I was trying to search for. I appreciate that understanding search parameters does take an investment of a small amount of time but it allows my searches to be a lot more effective than a standard Google search.
[Y]
Sean, I appreciate your informative response, and respect the hard work FL is investing into Logos. It seems counter intuitive on some level that development would work so hard to parallel existing/competing technologies when it would be relatively easy to interface the Logos database WITH google results. For example, If I searched for "For God so loved", results could be displayed from both my Logos library AND Google on the same page and differentiated (and/or weighed) by a big "L" for Logos or "G" for Google result. Then again, its been years since I lead a software development team, and I tend to think in terms of fast-to-market, and value-to-user.
Google wouldn't be willing for us to just incorporate their search results without showing their ads. Many people value the fact that Logos doesn't search the entire web, but only selected resources that have some measure of curation (and in the few instances where we do take you out to the web, we try to be careful to label that fact so you're not surprised).
Maybe there is a middle ground. We can use Google if we want Google, from a browser.
On the other hand, a database with common misspellings or alternate spellings and a search algorithm that can quickly process common variations might be very helpful a way to find phrases even if they typed are out of order. The ability to correct or include variants of phrases and terms common to Logos searches might add much value to Logos instead of having to dig through Google. We probably don't need to process 40K searches/second or to scan 30,000,000,000 web pages. Maybe as a start, 1 millionth of that would cover the 10 most common Bibles and could be done at a lower cost and still be extremely helpful.
This doesn't have to be all or nothing--Google or zip. Just some improvements along the way. Something more hope-giving than the sense of "Logos isn't Google, so not much will change."
Fuzzy search may be a big help in homing in on topics or other search criteria, but might not actually do what I think people are asking for here: A way to increase the likelihood of hits in common searches when our syntax isn't perfect.
That being said, we certainly recognize that search is fundamental for most users, and that we need to do more to make it simpler, more effective, and more powerful (all at the same time!).
To me this should be a top priority.
That being said, we certainly recognize that search is fundamental for most users, and that we need to do more to make it simpler, more effective, and more powerful (all at the same time!). To me this should be a top priority.
I believe that there are some steps that could be taken that would help - based on recent, unpleasant experience:
Note this is list is not getting into complex searches, original language, morphology, syntax ... this is the simple stuff that the average user should be able to do without explicitly studying advanced searches. Or to put it succinctly, most Bible searches and plain text are reasonably reliable; outside of these, Logos provides me with a great random sample tool under the guise of search.
Invalid search strings must turn red to tell us there is a problem.
Not like changing color of search string (since know some people with color blindness).
Like idea of showing search string has issue(s), which could be changing circle with arrow to Yield Sign when search string is incomplete: e.g. opening < lacks corresponding closing > for topic search:
Awesome would be hovering mouse over Yield sign for pop-up with message(s) about what is incomplete/invalid in search string.
Clicking Yield Sign (or pressing <enter>) would run search with issue(s).
Keep Smiling [:)]
