A new breed of search engine

In recent years, Google has gone from strength to strength, fending off the likes of yahoo and MSN live search to be crowned winner of the search engine wars.  However, things are changing and it appears Goggle is being left behind. 

What’s wrong with Google? I hear you ask.  Well, Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, puts it quite simply:
“Google is very good at many types of search, but in many instances it produces nothing but spam and useless crap.  Try searching the term ‘Tampa hotels’, for example, and you will not get any useful results…”

Search Listings decided by humans

So out goes the traditional ‘algorithm’ approach and enter, the new generation of user-based search engines.  Here the focus is on quality of results first and depth of results second.   Behind the scenes people are hand-crafting results for the most popular search terms to ensure you get the most relevant up to date information.

‘Search Wikia’ is one of a few being dubbed as a “human” search engine.  The main difference between this new breed and the old favourites is that search listings are decided by humans rather than by computer algorithms/programming. Human editors focus on providing results for generic, high volume keywords and as a result can filter out irrelevant and spam type listings.

Other players include Mahalo, which is being developed by former Netscape GM, Jason Calacanis and MyLiveSearch, an Australian start-up company whose mission is to challenge Google, by offering a truly “live” search that can also retrieve dynamically generated pages that are traditionally difficult for search engines to index.

So is this the end of Google?

Categorically not.  These “human” search engines will provide better answers for the top search terms, but will not be able to deal with the billions of queries that are asked of them.  In Mahalo’s case they will default to Google for search terms that they do not cover. 

Google are also putting up a fight of their own, and have been working on developing their user interface, with tools including keyboard shortcuts, timelines and contextual search suggestions.  Try these now.

If proven successful, these human edited search engines could pave the way to greater conversions and a whole new method of organic search engine optimisation. Remember that Search is still growing & developing so initiatives such as these are key in making sure Joe Public is getting the best deal & the best service from the engines. We will keep you up to date with further information about what this means for you in future issues of Blastoff.