Is there software or another search engine that orgainzes google's
answers into logical categories or related files or some other method
to tame the thousands of links to a question.  Wise nut does this
somewhat, but not with the google results, obviously.

---

Request for Question Clarification by maniac-ga on 17 Dec 2002 20:26 PST

Hello Ej1216,

Are you looking for something beyond what
  http://directory.google.com/
provides? A sample query of "user group" has 16000 matches in the
directory starting with
  Computer > Organizations > User Group
but the individual entries below are annotated with the category
(directory entry) they appear in.

I can also suggest some ideas using the search API's.

Please advise. Thanks.
  --Maniac

---

Clarification of Question by ej1216-ga on 18 Dec 2002 03:31 PST

Maniac:
Good question; I seldom use the directory and go directly to Google
search.  Bad habit.  When I go to google/directory/"user group" I get
2460 hits.  When I go to google/directory/organization/user groups
there are 52 hits.  Never got 16000 hits, but the directory is a great
idea.  I was trying to find a web based "search engine" that did
nothing but make better sense out of all the hits done on a normal
google search; or a piece of software.
Regards
Emile

Hello Ej1216,

Well then, let me expand on my request for clarification and submit a
proper answer.

Starting with the URL
  http://directory.google.com/
you can enter a search phrase such as "user group" in the search box
and get
://www.google.com/search?q=user+group&btnG=Google+Search&hl=en&cat=gwd%2FTop

which indicates the related categories
    Computers > Organizations > User Groups
and then says
  Searched within the category Google Directory for user group. 
Results 1 - 10 of about 16,400. Search took 0.13 sec
[it is the line above where I referred to the 16000 hits in the
directory - all categories]

and each reference listed below includes a Category: line. For
example, the top three references are in categories
   Computers > Software > Typesetting > TeX > User Groups
   Computers > Companies > Product Support > Apple
   Computers > Organizations > User Groups

This is the "simple answer". Your search phrase is used to give you
references that are categorized (by real people). That is perhaps the
best I can find to "make sense" of the hits of a google search.

The only disadvantage I see with this solution is that I do not see a
way to sort the references by category. Something like...

   Computers > Companies > Product Support > Apple
(all references under this category)
   Computers > Organizations > User Groups
(all references under this category)
   Computers > Software > Typesetting > TeX > User Groups
(all references under this category)
and so on

It may be possible to get this alternative listing order using the
Application Programming Interfaces (API) that are provided by google.
It would require writing a program (or having someone do one for you).
You can get an overview of this method at
  ://www.google.com/apis/
which has references to the code to download, how to register, limits
on searching (a thousand queries per day), and the kind of data you
can extract. The reference includes a description of the kinds of
queries you can perform and getting the "Google Directory" entry is
part of the data you can get back. With the program, you could pull
down a number of references, sort them by Google Directory entry and
then display the results as you wish.

  --Maniac

A very patient and complete answer by someone who obviously knows
his/her "stuff".  Very good clarification provided and question was
answered.  Thank you.

ej1216 -

Take a look at Copernic, it does this to some extent.

thanks,
ragingacademic

Appreciate the comment - I have Copernic, but I don't think it uses
Google.  It does group search engines by function.
Emile

Dear ej1216-ga
I cannot solve your problem, but a here's a little help on Copernic. I
have Copernic 2001 Basic. You can include Google by selecting under
Categories> Right Click 'The Web' > Select Properties> select Google.
Click OK. Google will now be included.
answerfinder-ga Google Answers Researcher

Very helpful tip, and a good way of thinking about how to get Google
results organized.