What I Learned in Class This Week

I've been thinking about on line search engines and how people use them. I read the histories and reminisced about the early days of internet access. We didn't understand then how important it was going to be to our lives and the way that we find information. Today, that's where I start my interactions on the Internet. The Google search interface is my home page.

I was surprised to learn that Yahoo uses the Google search engine and that started me thinking about the differences in online search engines. I've used Dogpile infrequently but I know that it exists and use it when I can't find what I'm looking for on Google. Google seems to be offering more and more sites that have paid to be at the top of the list. I know the quest for money overrides the quest for information- everyone needs to stay afloat economically but one does get tired of sifting through commercials.

I was also interested in the way that Google seemed to zoom to the top of our searching awareness. We've made the site's name a verb for goodness sake! What was it that set it apart from Dogpile, Yahoo, Lycos, Altavista and all the rest? My own thought is that for most of the users, the algorithms, spiders and cached work mattered less than its interesting name and clear, uncluttered interface. It was easy to remember that the odd word, Google, allowed us to search for information by typing in a couple of words. Magic! For most people, it hasn't mattered much that part of the Web is hidden, inaccessible. Google gives them enough to start and sense that there is a lot more if they want to look at it.

The past year has brought us Bing, a new search engine from Microsoft. I thought I remembered that it had a few flashy ads on the page but checking it just now revealed that I was wrong. I find myself negatively influenced by the graphics and the animations. A simple search showed many of the same sites that an identical search on Google brought up. I find that I still prefer Google's white page and search field presentation.

My search experience is only one of millions, billions, trillions that happen on the Internet. I wanted to say that most searchers feel the way that I do but I don't know that. Given that I tend to evaluate based on visual attributes, I will probably continue to use Google for most searching, digging deeper into databases only when Google can't give me what I need.