Elizabeth’s Introduction to the Digital Age

In his book, The Search, John Battelle talks about the history of the search and Google’s fairytale rise to fame. Battelle begins profiling the who, what, where, why, when, and how (much) of the search. According to Pew research, nearly 84% of people have conducted at least one search. “Pew also found that the younger you are or the higher your educational attainment is, the more you search” (p. 26).

Google ZeitGeist takes a look at some of the most searched questions and words that people are looking for online.  “Nearly 50 percent of all searches use two or three words, and 20 percent use just one. Just 5 percent of all searches use more than six words” (p. 27). According to Battelle, the Long Tail of Search Queries proves that no matter what word you search for, there’s most likely a result that contains it. He also provides a statistic I found interesting (perhaps because I’m included in this percentage): 40 percent of us have done a vanity search

85% of searchers use one of the big four portals (Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, or AOL) to conduct their searches. Why do they conduct these searches? The answer to that question is a bit more complex. Although it sounds a bit obvious, people search to find information. According to Battelle, not only are we searching for what we know, but we’re also searching for the answers to that which we don’t know.  

I know it’s hard to believe, but Google was not the first actual search engine! Before our lives changed with the advent of Google, AltaVista was the engine where people their searches. AltaVista had several problems, the main one being that the founders were not prepared for the amount of activity that the search database would generate. Before AltaVista’s time (there was a time before the time before Google!) search engines Archie and Veronica provided a database of search results, although they included titles of documents but not the full text of article. Not too helpful. But alas, in the summer of 1997, an academic paper was written that introduced Google to the world. Halleluiah!  

Being the academics that they were, Larry Page and Sergey Brin developed an algorithm after the citation process used for academic papers. “Papers are judged not only one their original thinking and the rigor of their citations, but also by the number of papers they cite, the number of pages that subsequently cite them back, and the perceived importance of each citation” (p. 70). Hence the birth of PageRank, which lead to a ranking system that “rewarded links that came from sources that were important, and penalized those that did not” (p. 75). The algorithm that the duo created managed to take into account the “number of links to a particular site, and the number of links into each of the linking sites” (p. 75).

Although Page and Brin thought their algorithm was revolutionary, they had a hard time selling it to newly formed web search engines. Because they couldn’t convince anyone else, they decided to start their own search engine and implement the algorithm. Think of all those web search engine execs out there who are thinking, ‘If I only would have…”

 But back to PageRank. I want to return to this algorithm because I find it a bit faulty. I know these guys have accomplished quite a bit in their lifetimes, but what gives them the right to judge everyone else’s web pages? According to Wikipedia, “Google assigns a numeric weighting from 0-10 for each webpage on the Internet; this PageRank denotes a site’s importance in the eyes of Google.” How do these “eyes of Google” represent the eyes of the hundreds of millions of searchers out there? How does Google assess sites in order to determine their numerical value? Isn’t it impossible for small Web sites that specialize in particular areas to become “credible” in the eyes of Google if no one else is linking to them? Another PageRank problem that Google has also encountered is that it’s considered fairly easy to manipulate the system. Some web hosts sell sites with high PageRank values to people who are willing to pay more for a higher ranking. Although Google admonishes this practice and says that people who participate in it will be reprimanded, how can they possibly police the entire transaction process and get all of the bad guys out there? According to their blog, Google is constantly finding ways to improve their algorithm by looking at data from individual searches and asking themselves important questions about search tendencies.  “What results do people click on? How does their behavior change when we change aspects of our algorithm? Using data in the logs, we can compare how well we’re doing now at finding useful information for you to how we did a year ago. If we don’t keep a history, we have no good way to evaluate our progress and make improvements.”  

One thing that I find particularly impressive about Google is that they use their own results to fuel future initiatives. In the 2007 yearend Zeitgeist report, 3 of the 10 questions under the “What is” category pertain to health. It’s no coincidence that Google’s newest project is to develop a health database. It’s also no coincidence that this site is being launched during a political season where healthcare is the number one issue for the majority of voters. 

 After officially announcing the project on their blog, Google said that, “Google Health aims to solve an urgent need that dovetails with our overall mission of organizing patient information and making it accessible and useful. Through our health offering, our users will be empowered to collect, store, and manage their own medical records online.” This sounds like a fascinating project and one that could be beneficial to millions of Americans. Are they hiring?!?!?!?!? The only way that Google will be beat in the world of technology is if more executives like Richard Branson begin to launch search engines that capitalize on their specialty. Branson will be launching a vertical search launcher that “promises to revolutionize high-end corporate travel and last minute luxury travel.”  Although Google has the technology, Branson has his reputation and the means. Others should take heed to Branson’s newest business venture.  

My 2008 prediction for Google: According to ZeitGeist, a majority of search queries deal with religion, lifestyle (dieting and cooking), and psychology. By the time we ring in 2009, Google will have developed search engines that concentrate on all these areas.