Quality Leads and Search Engines - Part One
Although search engines and directories
have become, largely by default, the
means through which many people have
tried to find their way around the
Internet, in point of fact, most search
engines and directories often do not
serve the interests of either Websteaders
or surfers. Instead, search engines and
directories have multiplied like rabbits -
not necessarily out of any desire to serve
the needs of the public but, frequently,
because of the capacity of search engines
and directories to attract traffic and,
thereby, serve as a generator of
advertising revenue for their owners.
While there is nothing wrong with
earning advertising dollars, there may be
a problem with the way the interests and
needs of many surfers and Websteaders
tend to get short shrift, if not become lost
altogether, in the commercial two-step
that often surrounds the operations of
any number of search engines and
directories. Rather than treat surfers and
Websteaders as mere means to a
financial end, many search engines and
directories might do well to try to do a
better job of creating - to whatever
extent possible - a service in which
surfers, Websteaders, advertisers, and
search engines/directories become part
of a win-win-win-win situation.
The present article is an attempt to
outline some of the problems that seem
to be entailed by the idea of search
engines - at least as presently conceived.
In addition, toward the end of the article,
an alternative to the search engine
paradigm is offered for consideration.
In a sense, this article addresses the
following question: what is the best way
to discover leads capable of taking one
to quality Web Pages? The answer,
although obvious in many ways, may
both surprise you, as well as make a
great deal of sense, and it is an answer
that has the potential to serve the
interests of surfers, Websteaders, and
advertisers equally well.
What exactly does a search engine do?
Simply put, a search engine probes its
data base for entries which match, to a
greater or lesser degree (more or this
later), the character of the query that
initiated the search in the first place.
This search usually is set in motion by an
individual - someone like you or me -
who has entered a keyword, or some
combination of keywords, into the
activation window of a specific search
engine. After typing in the keyword clues
that we hope will lead to an answer to
our quest, we hit "Enter" or "Go" or
"Search", and a few seconds or minutes
later, the results of the search appear.
Some people think a search engine
scours the Internet looking for matches
to a keyword query. Alas, this is not the
case, and, in fact, there are several
senses in which this is not so.
All a search engine can do is examine the
data base which helps underwrite the
activity of the engine in question.
Therefore, if an URL has not been
submitted to this data base by, say,
someone who is hoping to promote a
Web Site, then no matter what kind of
search one undertakes in relation to that
data base, the search engine can't yield
what it does not contain.
Moreover, the role which a given
keyword plays in a Web surfer's query
may not at all coincide with the role that
the same keyword plays in either a
search engine, or with the role that the
keyword plays in the mind of someone
who is making an URL submission to a
search engine in the hope that one, or
more, surfers (preferably more) might be
able to locate the submitted Page. The
logic, assumptions, values, interests, and
needs surrounding the use of keywords
in each of these instance may be quite
different and, as a result, surfer, search
engine and Websteader are frequently
talking at cross-purposes with one
another.
For example, a search engine may
weight keywords according to how many
times any given word appears in a
particular Web Page. A Websteader, on
the other hand, may provide a list of
keywords based not on the number of
times they appear in the title, meta tags,
headers or text of the Web Page but,
instead, built around how important the
Websteader considers the concepts to be
to which the list of keywords make
reference.
A Websteader only may mention, say,
"God", "philosophy", "politics" or
"ethics" once, but any of these words
might capture what lies at the heart of
the individual's Page. Consequently, the
importance which such words have in the
mind of the Websteader may never be
reflected in the way that a search engine
or directory characterizes the same Web
Site.
In addition, someone who is looking for
information through a search engine or
directory may have, for instance, a very
different sense of the relative importance
of various keywords than does either a
search engine or a Websteader. This
touches on what is known in computer
circles as the "user-interface" problem.
More specifically, how does a company
go about constructing a piece of
hardware or software so that it is
capable of handling the variable ways in
which different people will interact or
interface with that hardware or
software? This is a very complicated
problem precisely because there is so
much variability in the ideas,
assumptions, habits, interests, styles,
methods, training, understanding, and
capabilities possessed by the people
using such technology.
Translated into terms relevant to the
issue of search engines and directories,
the user-interface problem emerges when
a surfer operates on the basis of
assumptions and understandings which
are at odds with the assumptions and
understandings of search
engine/directory operators and/or
Websteaders who conjointly (although
not necessarily in harmony) are helping
to shape the character of the data base
being engaged by the surfer. In such
cases, the keywords used by a surfer, on
the basis of her or his understanding of a
given topic, may not yield the kind of
"matches" which the surfer desires.
The "help" options provided by many
search engines and directories are an
attempt to provide suggestions and
guidelines which can be used by a surfer
to dislodge the required information
under these kinds of circumstance. In
effect, these 'help' resources are intended
to bridge some of the gaps created
through the aforementioned
user-interface problem.
Operators of a search engine service
might wish to comment further on the
foregoing scenario with something along
the following lines. They might say, for
example, that when this sort of situation
occurs, then the fault lies with the
Websteader or surfer for not playing the
search engine game the way that
programers and operators have designed
that game to be played.
For example, if a Websteader uses a
word only once, search engines have no
way to assign a value to the importance
of such a word within a given Web Page.
They may need multiple uses of a word in
order to try to differentiate the
importance of a word relative to other
words which are used less frequently in a
Page, and, therefore, Websteaders are
going to have to write their Pages in a
manner that meshes with the way in
which the search engine or directory
operates if they expect to gain visibility in
these services.
Or, alternatively, surfers may be told
they are just going to have spend the
time necessary to gain facility with the
peculiarities and properties of a given
search engine or directory if they hope to
gain useful information from such
services. The fact there are numerous
search engines and directories in
existence requiring special attention and
treatment from surfers seems immaterial
to the creators of these services who
often don't care about how much time,
energy and memory cells need to be
expended by surfers, as long as traffic
translates into advertising dollars.
In effect, Websteaders and surfers are
being told that if they wish to have any
chance of gaining, respectively, visibility
or useful information, in the
match-listings a search engine returns in
response to a keyword query, then these
individuals must cater to the limitations
and peculiarities of search engine
requirements. This kind of arrangement
is, for the most part, a case of a tail
trying to wag a variety of dogs, and it is
gives expression to a common
phenomenon in many technologies which
are incapable - at the present time - of
solving the user-interface problem ...
namely, to try to force people to conform
to the characteristics of the technology,
rather than the other way around.
| Next | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 |
Return to Internet Menu
|
