One of the Web's best-known search engine gurus says, in a discussion
group post: "I'm beginning to believe that search engines are a
dead-end technology." Reams of irrelevant results and endless backlogs
presage the imminent demise of the search engine. Or maybe not so
imminent. Actually, the post quoted is from 1997. Three Web centuries
later, the search engines still have exactly the same problems, people
are still predicting their downfall, and the darn things are still
ticking.
Search engines and directories survive, and indeed flourish, because
they're all we've got. If you want to use the wealth of information
that is the Web, you've got to be able to find what you want, and
search engines and directories are the only way to do that. However,
most Web users and Web publishers will agree that there are serious
problems. Getting good search results is a matter of chance. Depending
on what you're searching for, you may get a meaty list of good
resources, or you may get page after page of irrelevant drivel. By
laboriously refining your search, and using several different search
engines and directories (and especially by using appropriate specialty
directories), you can usually find what you need in the end. But there
sure is a lot of room for improvement.
