The Awful State of Search (a stream of consciousness rant)

[sinewav]

You know, I don't like the state of search nowadays.

Here's why: The big engines like Google and Bing tailor your results around what they think you want, limiting what you get. The small engines are not as comprehensive and might not return the best results. This leaves a lot of holes everywhere. At the same time search is supposedly getting better, it's actually getting worse too. Search engines try to filter out junk so you get more relevance. But the search engine's perceived junk is totally useful in some cases and should be included. When the human mind sees the unexpected, it automatically tries to fit the new information into a schema, and sometimes schemas need to change creatively. Our schemas help us make sense of the world.

It seems to me that the solution to better search falls back on social networks, but maybe not how you might expect. I feel like, to truly get good search results you need interaction with other people who can search alongside you. People with different tastes and interests, specifically. People who have an interest in search and are good at it. Working together, you make a kind of "collective search" where you can share each other's results. Two or three people working on an idea might search in slightly different ways, using slightly different keywords in phrases, and different search engines. And since today's search results are not universal to everyone, the collection of results can be more comprehensive I believe. It's like we are now dependent on people who are different to have a better search experience. Search as problem-solving is better in a group situation.

It's easy to think "oh, well search engines should just try and make those connections for you. after all, it's easy to see who you interact with and combining your results with the projected results of your friends is easy." But I don't think it's that easy. I do think the mind is capable of making creative connections with language -- something computers can't do yet. And when looking over search results, different people literally see different ideas in front of them as they hone in on words and phrases that may have particular significance based on their personal experience (example, you might notice more red cars on the road after buying a red car; or reluctantly deciding against a red car). Returning to schemas, I imagine a "group schema" where individuals learn to solve certain problems through each other's ability to search and share both good information and junk.

I wonder about the future of information and how we access and share it. Computers can store, sort, and retrieve information. That's the very lowest level of the human mind. As we find ourselves augmenting our mind power with computers, can we expect them to increase our ability to think creatively? To have revelations? To do other the things the mind does besides store, sort, and retrieve?

[Desolate]

Well yeah, I've always hated Bing, the first time I ever used it, it gave me something completely unrelated to the thing I had specifically searched for. I don't remember it at the moment, but the url's given weren't even remotely close.

[Concord]

hate that one of the top 5 is always wikipedia. If I want a wikipedia article, which is almost never, I'll got to wikipedia and search there.

[Word]

I just found out that our first lady worked supposedly as a prostitude! That's BILD's next step to make our president step back (not that I can like him or BILD, but I feel more and more as if we have a banana republic.)

(for the germans)
http://www.allround-talk-forum.com/poli ... erden.html

Thanks, biased search engines of the world.

[Phytotron]

Brainstorm™, a new (old) search engine.

And, apparently, there's actually a Search Engine Journal.


Word, what? Again with you.

[compguygene]

I rather enjoyed reading your rant, sine. From a practical standpoint, I would like to explain and defend the most recent huge and on-going changes that Google has implemented. As an Internet Marketer who does both some Affiliate Marketing and Local Internet Marketing, I am very aware of the changes that Google Panda has caused. As an marketer that has exercised good morals and has attempted to actually deliver value to people that come to my sites, Google Panda has benefited me and hurt my competition that was using loopholes and techniques to get their sites to the top ranking. I have always used techniques that actually deliver value to the average surfer with relevant content that helps. Sales have come naturally as a result. Google has stated repeatedly that they hate "Affiliate Sites" that just try to sell you stuff.
If you read the above link, you will find that Google Panda uses a combination of AI and human raters to punish and reward sites. However, its still pretty new, and subject to lots of changes.
So, you are correct in saying that some query spaces now get worse results. I will say that white hat SEO people that I follow have been saying how this is improving, slowly, every month. From the standpoint of Internet Marketers, if you do the "Right Thing" in terms of delivering value to the end users of your sites, and off-the-site SEO (articles, blog posts, etc), you sites will continue to improve in rankings or stay at the number one spot. Honestly, I have a lot of contempt for the majority of my fellow Internet Marketers.

[Kijutsu]

What we're able to see and search for on the internet is only the tip of the iceberg, it's crazy if you know what's out there. Anyways, if senate passes their version of SOPA on the 24th this month, we'll have more to complain about.

[sinewav]

Thanks for the interesting reply gene. Please spend more of your lunch-breaks marketing ArmagetronAd.

[Lucifer]

Here's a game:

Disable safe search completely on Google.

Pick two words that are completely innocuous.

Thumb through the results and note the first XXX link.

Please be old enough to do so in your jurisdiction.

(That was how I found tubgirl)

[owned]

Sine, I read an article on that topic a little while ago that I can't seem to find. I just wish these search engines would add in an option to have an unfiltered search engine.

[Desolate]

hahahahahaha ^ very nice Woned, perfect supporting comment

[syllabear]

What we're able to see and search for on the internet is only the tip of the iceberg, it's crazy if you know what's out there. Anyways, if senate passes their version of SOPA on the 24th this month, we'll have more to complain about.

how2deepweb?

[Phytotron]

This relates a bit to a few of the comments here, and besides I thought it might amuse you all. Last night we were wondering idly about when the term "24/7" originated. Anyway, enter "24/7 etymology" into Google. See the first result.

[Desolate]

obviously you were searching for any article that had etymology and 24/7 in it!

[Z-Man]

Haha. What I personally found is that google is surprisingly good at getting semi-sentence search terms right; in this case, google 'etymology of 24/7' because that's what you want, not someone doing etymology 24/7. I always do it that way; think of a question I would ask a human, throw out words that would not be good search terms and filler and don't serve to differentiate the query.