Today we continue our 3 part series on “What is a Search Engine?” with Part II “What is Not a Search Engine?” by Kaila Colbin.
Part I: What is a Search Engine? by Nitin Karandikar (Yesterday)
Part II: What is Not a Search Engine? by Kaila Colbin (Today)
Part III: What is an Alternative Search Engine?* by me (Tomorrow)
*to be followed by the “Top 100 Alternative Search Engines” August Update.
What is not a search engine?
When we began the conversation that eventually led to this piece, our focus was on how to define search engines. What we found, though, is that you can’t discuss the foreground without discussing the background, and you can’t discuss what a search engine is without discussing what it isn’t. That’s where I come in.
Foreground vs background: is this a picture of a man playing sax or woman’s face?
The question of what is and isn’t a search engine came up for more than one reader on Charles’ ‘Day without Google’, when people were invited to spend 24 hours without accessing the top 5 search engines. Nick T had this question:
Which ones count as “Meta Search” engines? I know many are listed in the top 100 as MetaSearch (as opposed to image/blog/etc), but it seems like just about all of them have at least some results from places like Ask and MSN at the very least. For example, would Clusty count as “Meta”?
A ‘meta search’ engine is one that searches search engines. So because they aren’t generating the results themselves but rather compiling results generated by others, are they search engines or not?
Other participants in the Day without Google used Quintura, which offers a different interface for results from the majors. So is Quintura a search engine or isn’t it?
Wikipedia says that search engines operate by crawling the Web, indexing what they find, and serving up the results in response to queries. So when Yahoo’s search results were powered by the Inktomi index, was Yahoo not a search engine?
To the best of my knowledge, there’s no formal definition of what a search engine isn’t; the field is wide open for me to launch a hypothesis, which you in turn may agree with, ridicule, oppose, disseminate or discredit as you wish.
You should also know that Nitin, Charles and I wrote our contributions independently of each other, so our claims may be blatantly contradictory—an excellent opportunity to discuss our different perspectives.
I propose that the following characteristics are indicators that a web offering is not a search engine:
- Its primary purpose is to support other search engines.
Services like Inktomi and VortexDNA make no claim to provide direct access to search results. The primary business model of these companies is to improve the ability of other companies to deliver better results.(Disclosure: I am the blogger for VortexDNA.) - It has no involvement in the generation of the results, and those results are available directly from the company that provides them.
There may be a few people who disagree with this statement. Essentially it means that Quintura is not a search engine (notwithstanding the fact that it tied for search engine of the month this June). Earthle is not a search engine. Why not? Because you don’t go to them because of the results they are capable of generating. You go to them because there’s something about the interface you prefer to the original.It does mean that when Yahoo was powered by Inktomi, Yahoo was a search engine. Here’s the distinction I’m making: Are you outsourcing a business function in order to perform your company’s overall mission? Search engine. Does your primary business consist of the interface rather than the search, and can the effectiveness of your interface be uncoupled from the effectiveness of the search results? Not a search engine.Quintura, for example, uses Google, Yahoo!, MSN Search and Technorati to deliver its results. You don’t use Quintura because of the results. You use it because of the interface. - It doesn’t search beyond its own e-borders.
Wikipedia is a place I go to search for stuff and find information. But it’s not a search engine. I only go there to find wikipedia-style information. It’s not a search engine; it’s the index to a book. Likewise the Yellow Pages, or social networking sites like Facebook.
There is one point that I need to make here, in case of any confusion caused earlier in this piece, and that is this:
I think there can be a lot of merit in a business model that consists of an interface rather than a search engine.
So, when I say Quintura is an interface rather than a search engine, I’m not saying it’s ‘just’ an interface, or trying to suggest that it should try to be a search engine. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I believe that interfaces will be a key point of difference in a society that is increasingly overcrowded with information.
When we define categories like search engines, it’s frequently as important to understand what doesn’t qualify, as much as what does. I hope this post can serve as a starting point for a conversation about our communal understanding of what a search engine isn’t.
Kaila Colbin is the blogger for VortexDNA.
Please add your input by leaving a comment!
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July 31st, 2007 at 11:24 pm
I think it’s time to put the motor under the hood. I’ve enjoyed the formation years of the web and both search and many aggregation portals. But I want promises delivered. I want power .and. streamlining.
Kaila is urging greater ‘intelligence’ from search when she says, “interfaces will be a key point of difference in a society that is increasingly overcrowded with information.”
Most pundits have forgotten to put demands on Search. Heavy demands. We’re past the good days when search was a novelty, and we’re not finished with developing search where it won’t drive us nuts. We’ve filled our tanks. Now we need to see whether we’re happy with the mileage.
Lately everyone is too busy with Facebook to notice the flaws. For instance, when Google is criticized, it’s not for the functionality of its search. When Google is loved, it’s for peripheral services. But now it’s time to discredit ordinary search.
Thanks Google, for the good years, but Personalization fails to deliver the bargain discounts I’ve wanted and forgets that I hate plaid summer shorts. Page Rank fails to eliminate repetition, treachery and utter junk. And Search has buried me in more trivia than I can sort in any lifetime.
Maybe newspapers will stop losing their esteem and take responsibility by helping us with huge bins of information and not merely feeding news. I’m longing for a new series of aggregation portal.
I don’t want to search infinity nor just a zipcode, but I yearn for a new portal based on the wisdom we’ve gathered after a few years on the Internet – a combination of my town’s librarian, my college professor, my small town paper and overhearing what’s being said over morning coffee before the doors open for business. Perhaps never the best or the latest, this kind of news and advice works and it keeps me away from the endless little problems of Washington graft and the bounties of Afghani opium.
Goo-Off might be a better front page to Google’s engine. Goo-Off can eliminate government brochures posted in 50 Agencies plus re-posted 50 times from each State plus 50 times from non-profits making a buck distributing government brochures plus 50 times repeated in official-sounding snippets stolen to peddle bogus cures for cancer.
Goo-Off might be a wise offshoot to save Google’s usefulness and prestige. Oh, for an adequately filtered page that helps find a good cheap cup of coffee and knows I like it intravenously.
August 1st, 2007 at 9:51 am
Very interesting post, Kaila – takes a lot of courage to take on a topic like this! I think the distinction you make between an interface and a “pure” search engine is useful, although more conceptual than practical. Some search engines would start as interfaces in your definition (SenseBot is no exception), but can add crawling in the future, or integrate with a crawler. And vice versa, Google started as a pure search engine, but is building more and more interfaces on top of it.
See also Nitin Karandikar’s post on the conceptual architecture of search at http://blog.softwareabstractions.com/the_software_abstractions/2007/05/a_conceptual_ar.html.
August 1st, 2007 at 5:37 pm
Brian: “Power and streamlining” nails it. When we first started using search, we were so surprised to find anything at all that we wanted to find as much as we can. Now that it’s a given we’ll be able to get far more information than we’ll ever want or need, search engines have to focus on discernment to distinguish themselves. Sounds kind of like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs — as each gets satisfied, the next one on the list takes over in importance.
Dmitri: Thank you! Yes, I agree, this is more of a conceptual discussion. I suppose what it comes down to is the point of difference you might sell to a VC (or a Google Director of Acquisitions). In the offline world, McDonald’s, from a financial perspective, is a real estate company.
I’m not very familiar with SenseBot (although I’ll be checking you guys out as soon as I finish this!), but it sounds from your description like your primary point of difference is something other than the unique results you’re able to serve up. Is that a fair assumption, or have I completely misunderstood?
I really appreciate your feedback, and I’ll make sure to read Nitin’s piece now as well
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:41 pm
You are right Kaila, SenseBot currently takes results from the Big 3 and produces a summary on the topic of the query. The uniqueness of the offering is that the boundaries of individual pages are crossed, and the summary is created on the topic overall rather than on each individual page. The idea is to enable the user to grasp 80% of the answer in a few seconds, without the need to wander through often irrelevant pages. In your definition, we would be an interface to a search engine, until we start crawling our own results.
August 2nd, 2007 at 4:26 pm
Hey there Dmitri,
I had a look at your site, and I really like what you guys are about. There’s heaps of value in being able to deliver concise summaries in a few seconds.
I’d love to hear more about how things go with you as you grow. Please keep me posted.
All the best,
Kaila