The simple fact that Wikia search is using Nutch and displaying the Score Explanation will in my opinion spark a new breed of Search. I remember a couple of years ago I tried to install Nutch and I failed miserably. I haven’t tried again since and if I can’t figure it out this time, I’ll probably hire a developer to get it going. I think a lot of SEOs are having the same idea right now and if you’re not, why not? It should be obvious to the SEO community that the Score Explanation is not going to reveal any “secrets” but it just could provide some clarity on Google’s core abilities. Apparently, “Nutch uses hadoop, which is almost a direct clone of the Google file system and Map-reduce.” To me that sounds like gold in an industry based on guessing.
Now what does this mean for Search? If the Nutch becomes the next toy for open source junkies, we can probably expect to start seeing some pretty interesting applications of Search. For example, my first search engine will have a completely unique approach to displaying the SERPs. Your first search engine may have a completely new approach to delivering ads. Who knows what’s to come? How much smaller will the concept of Search become if Nutch becomes the next Scuttle or phpLD?
