Google Not Best for All Searches (Page 1 of 4 )
When you’re looking for information, do you go to an encyclopedia or a specialized book? If you answered “Neither; I check the Internet,” don’t click away. The question has more relevance for the major search engines, particularly Google, than you might think.
I still use Google as my default search engine, and so do many others trying to find information on the Internet. Online research and rankings site comScore recently released figures that revealed the U.S. traffic rankings of sites competing in the search marketplace. For the month of October 2007, Google held on to a major lead. Users performed 6.1 billion core searches at Google’s sites, a figure that represents 58.5 percent of the search market. The second place search company, Yahoo, claims less than a quarter of the search market.
Can millions and millions of Internet users be wrong? Yes and no. The truth of the matter is, not all searches are created equal. Google, however, treats them as if they are. That’s not surprising; frankly, with as many searchers as Google sees using its main search page, it can’t really do otherwise. So every search is treated as if it is looking for general information, even though the user’s intentions may be to get a very specific piece of information.
Uncovering a user’s intention remains one of the most difficult things for search engines to accomplish. If I put the phrase “Beach Boys” into a search engine, do I want information about the band’s history? Am I looking for somewhere to buy their music? Do I want tickets to their next concert? Or am I hoping to find (possibly pirated) videos of the group in performance?
The answers to those questions matter. Search engines are all about putting the most relevant results at the top. Which links are most relevant to the searcher depends on which question they really have in mind when they put those keywords into the search box. We can’t just ask the question; we have to use the right keywords and hope the search engine – and the sites – give us an answer that matches the real question we had. Some search engines are better at answering certain kinds of questions than others. If you’ve tried Google for certain queries and found it wanting, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
Next: Asking the Right Search Engine >>
More Search Engine News Articles
More By Terri Wells
/ 5 
