Are all Search Engines Brain Damaged?
Posted By Lid On June 4, 2007 @ 7:59 am In Fun | No Comments
On November 11, 1990, Peter Deutsch announced the birth of Archie [1], the worlds first search engine, in a post titled “ An Internet archive server server [2]” on Usenet. Incidentally, for those who didn’t know, Google acquired Deja.com’s complete Usenet archive [3](some 500 million messages) in 2001.
In the post, Deutsch describes Archie as
“pretty brain damaged”
He was right, and for me it was the beginning of a love/hate relationship with search that I am certain will continue forever.
With each new generation of perfect search, there was a glimmer of hope, and certainly they all brought something new, yet not one was without some degree of brain damage…maybe it’s hereditary.
Today, almost 17 years later I watch in hopeless fascination as Google roll out Universal Search [4].
There are a couple of great articles about Google’s Universal Search at Search Engine Land [5] - Google 2.0: Google Universal Search [6] by Danny Sullivan [7], and Adapting to Google’s Universal Search [8] by Eric Ward [9], both written in plain English, and offering far better explanations than I ever could. My only comment on Universal Search is it’s still a bit buggy.
Sort of like this:
[10]
I have my fingers crossed that they have worked it out; not so much for me, I worked out years ago that I can pretty much hunt down anything on the Internet — OK, yes, sometimes it takes a few days and maybe search engine brain damage is not just hereditary, but also contagious (I think I’ve caught it) — but for everyone else out there who searches and never finds. And to quote Walt Mossberg [11]: “ It isn’t your fault [12]”.
Related Stories on the Internet:
Marketing Pilgrim [13]: Google’s Search Gurus Spill Beans on Algorithm [14]
New York Times: Google Keeps Tweaking its Search Engine [15] June 3, 2007
Article printed from BlogWell: http://blog-well.com
URL to article: http://blog-well.com/2007/06/04/are-all-search-engines-brain-damaged/
URLs in this post:
[1] Archie: http://www.answers.com/topic/archie-search-engine
[2] An Internet archive server server: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.archives/msg/a77343f9175b24c3?output=gplain
[3] Google acquired Deja.com’s complete Usenet archive : http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/pressrelease48.html
[4] Universal Search: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/universal-search-best-answer-is-still.html
[5] Search Engine Land: http://searchengineland.com/
[6] Google 2.0: Google Universal Search: http://searchengineland.com/070516-143312.php
[7] Danny Sullivan: http://calafia.com/about/
[8] Adapting to Google’s Universal Search: http://searchengineland.com/070604-073353.php
[9] Eric Ward: http://www.ericward.com/
[10] Image: http://blog-well.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/dsgus60.jpg
[11] Walt Mossberg: http://walt.allthingsd.com/
[12] It isn’t your fault: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.05/mossberg.html
[13] Marketing Pilgrim: http://www.marketingpilgrim.com
[14] Google’s Search Gurus Spill Beans on Algorithm: http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2007/06/googles-search-gurus-spill-beans-on-algorithm.html
[15] Google Keeps Tweaking its Search Engine: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/business/yourmoney/03google.html?ex=1338609600&en=5553dafd17cc077d&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
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