Microsoft's search engine way behind Google? Blame the name
technologizer.com
technologizer.com
An experience a week or so ago will nicely illustrate that. I was searching for PHP CMSes that have a tutorial to write modules, so I was searching for "php cms module tutorial" (without the quotes). I got to the search page and started furiously middle-clicking promising results. Once at the end of the page, there was a small note without any specific typesetting saying "Note: The word 'module' was dropped from your search results. Click here to search again with the word included." (Quoted from memory, so I may be a little off.)
Don't do that. If I ask for something, don't give me something else! And definitely don't do it without telling me beforehand.
They're doing something similar where they include a few results for something they think you ought to have searched for, then a horizontal rule, and then the thing you actually searched for. At least there I know it's happening, but it's still not what I asked for.
By all means, give me a suggestion if you think I made a mistake. But give me what I asked for anyway. Without me jumping through hoops for you. It messes up my train of thought :-(
"Tip: These results do not include the word "module". Show results that include "module"."
This is very, very annoying...
I would really prefer it if they just suggested that I may like to try the search without the word and leave it up to me to decide if that's what I want.
In any case, these Google fuck-ups are not a rare occassion for me anymore. This morning I was searching for "min cut directed graph" (no quotes). Of the 10 results on the front-page only three were about directed graphs. The rest were about undirected graphs, despite the fact that I explicitly asked for directed graphs.
At that point I snapped and continued my search with Yahoo!. Something I expect to do more often when this keeps up. It's really hard to find something if this is the way things work...
It's evident in how people work. Google got a few things right :
- Got the users early : Just a simple textbox opening up the doors to the world wide web was what got people using it (as compared to others like altavista with heavy pages that took a while to load .. and load times were (and still are) very important.
- Kept the users : Given how humans work, once people get used to using something, they would go to great lengths to avoid changing. In the same vein, once I get used to using Google and getting what I need, it will take a lot of effort to make me switch because frankly, I don't need to because switching would take me out of my comfort zone and involve changing myself.
- Scaled : Peer pressure / Word of mouth is a strong thing. As more and more people use Google and like it, they tell others about it. Imagine hearing that Google is the best from a bunch of trusted computer-savvy friends/relatives than seeing a commercial saying Live search is better. Who are you likely to trust ?