Back to Search
Back to search. (Or is it the future?) In a previous post, I suggested that search is the "honey trap" that induces users to visit Google's Web properties where they can be shown targeted ads. I also noted that this model (while still the majority of Google's business) is becoming relatively less important -- because close to half of Google's revenue comes from targeted keyword advertising (AdWords / AdSense) on affiliate sites.
Maybe it's time to have a hard look at searching. Google is still (more or less) the best search engine there is. (View a list of competitors). (So I can discuss Google and implicitly use it as a proxy for all search engines.) But you can't find what isn't there. There's plenty of information that just isn't available on the Web. Google's doing an imaginative and commendable job of addressing this with programs like Google Publisher and with its library digitization efforts. But the fact remains that it will be a long time (if ever) before all of the world's information is available online. (Some people, but not me, would even say this is a good thing!)
More interestingly, what about the garbage one sometime's gets out of Google search results? True, a skilled Google researcher who understands operators and is creative with search terms can usually find what is to be found. But Google is meant for casual use, not as a professional tool. Too often good information is buried after pages and pages of garbage search results. Many of these garbage search results are the product of attempts to game the system by practicing the arcane art of SEO ("search engine optimization") and attempting to outwit Google's PageRank algorithm in its current obscure variation. Some of diarrhea of bogus information simply comes from a plethora of new information mediums such as RSS feeds, blogs(!), etc. But whatever the etiology, it doesn't make for a pleasant user experience -- and calls into question how well the PageRank incantation actually works. Why bother with the thousands of search results when nobody looks past the firsty thirty? Is there a way to create an automated algorithm that makes it possible to find real information while discarding the garbage? Can PageRank be saved?
Stay tuned to the Googleplex Blog for my further thoughts, the answers to these questions, and the meaning of life, the universe, and all that!
Posted by Harold Davis at February 5, 2005 9:21 AM
