Musings on search engines

So as a part of my new job situation, I currently have a vested interest in the search engine wars. Which, comes as some surprise to me considering my history with search engines.

Back in 1999 I had one search engine that I used. Infoseek. Period. I never really had any desire to check out a new one. Infoseek was the tool I used because I could use 'advanced' search criteria on it. If I wanted to search for apple pie, but not get any page that had mention of cherry pie, it was very simple to do.

I never cared for Yahoo, the completely dominant player at the time, because it's information was dated. Because they used humans to sort through links they would display, the information could sometimes be months out of date and sometimes inaccurate (humans it seems, make mistakes. Weird.)

Then, in about October of 2000, I came across a new search engine (well, new to me anyway)...Google. It took some time to adjust, but it won me over with one new concept that absolutely blew me away....relevance.

Where it took me 4-5 pages of sorting to find what I was looking for, in google...I found it in 1-2. It greatly decreased the time it took me to find things. In less than a month, I was using only Google and I removed infoseek from my bookmarks.

Since I made the switch, Google has only improved. These days I consider myself an expert in searching for information on the internet. When I do a search, 99% of the time not only is the thing I'm looking for on the first page, it is generally the #1 or #2 hit.

So...how does a new search engine *win* against google? Lets say you work for a company that wanted to compete. How could they do so?

Here is my list:
* Provide a method that simplifies search even more and saves time.
As I said, I consider myself somewhat an expert in search. To win against Google, you need to provide a method whereby somebody who is not an expert in search can get my same performance out of the search engine.

How? I have a few thoughts:
- Contextual searching.
Not one search bar for everything. That has been done. Give me a link to say 'I want technical support' (or something), and have a form to fill out that includes "Put error message here". That way, when a user puts an error message in that field, they don't have to enclose it in quotes and commonly used conjunctions or other small words are not ignored.

Also, you could have a 'shopping' form that allows you to input shopping related searching. Same for searching for videos, music, travel, and weather information. Whatever.

-Cater to the geeks first
Look, I know the highlight is the consumer, but broad consumer adoption just isn't going to happen until you win over the geeks. My non-geek friends are going to look to their geek friends to figure out what search engine to use. A 30 second TV spot will get them to check out the site, but is it going to make them change their bookmarks? A consumer isn't going to dig into the nuts and bolts and figure out why this is such a great new search engine. A geek will, and then will distill the new features to their non-geek friends that is RELEVANT to their interests.

I'm not going to tell my wife every reason the iphone is cool. I'm going to tell her cool things she will use on the iphone. Win the geeks, and the non-geeks will follow.

- Emphasis on how you are better. Not different. Better.
Microsoft has this commercial on how Bing is a 'decision' engine. What does that mean? I realize it is hard to get anything across in a 30 second TV spot, but learn from your Windows 7 commercials! Show me what your search engine DOES. The Windows 7 commercials are brilliant. They show me a new feature of Windows 7, wrap in a little cheesy humor (the reenactment's being played by a really buff guy, while the guy talking is kinda overweight...awesome. :P), and then they lay the stupid marketing 'catch phrase' on me "I'm a PC and Windows 7 was my idea"...or whatever.

Anyway, those commercials are pretty effective. If I like the feature, I might give Windows 7 a whirl because of that commercial..since I have to pay for it, it might be a small chance, but it would weigh into my decision for sure. For a search engine that COSTS ME NOTHING, if I liked a feature I saw on TV, there is an absolute 100 percent chance I would try it.

Calling it a 'decision engine' doesn't make me want to try it because I have no bloody clue what that means. I have no particular problem with Bing, but their marketing is ridiculous. Anyway, where was I? I got a little sidetracked there.

Here is the point: If you want to be the player that makes a dent in Google's market share:
Do something better than Google.
Make sure the geeks know about how your feature is better.
Show your awesome new feature off in your advertising.

Easy right? Well...problem is that Google does the whole search thing really well. It is going to be pretty difficult to do it better.

BTW: Good search engine ad: http://www.youtube.com/searchstories?x=R31ge09jaXw