Why Big Guys Don't Do Search!

I often wonder why big companies with big budgets and staffs don't dominate the search field. After all, they have the resources to get the job done, and "it ain't rocket science"!

SearchInsider has an article that summarizes my thoughts pretty well. The basics are:

1. Search is small.
   
2. Search is measurable.
   
3. Search is hard.
   
4. Search is utilitarian.

When you think about this, it is good news for most small businesses. It means that you will not have to compete head-to-head against these organizations until their mindset changes.

Search Insider » Blog Archive » Will Agencies Get Search? Don’t Hold Your Breath

Google Experimental Search Adds Personalized Page Ranking | Compiler from Wired.com

"Google has rolled out a new option in its Labs-based experimental search program which allows you to rank and re-order search results. The new experiment is reportedly showing up for select users only, but the help page says that the goal is to allow you to 'influence your search experience by adding, moving, and removing search results.'"

This article in Wired magazine illustrates the constantly changing nature of the search engine environment. As the article indicates, this is not available to the general public yet, and may never be, but it points the direction to where Google is going with its thinking about searching.

As the article states, this feature is available only to select users at present. If it does make it into the public experience, it adds a level of customization to the search experience. If users have this kind of control over their settings in Google, and if they find the feature useful in improving the quality of their searches, it will tie them more firmly to Google to help maintain the current dominance that Google has over the search arena.

I can also imagine the possibility that Google will be aware of how its users apply this customization and somehow figure out how to incorporate that information into its public algorithm. What that might mean to webmasters is that the importance of community building is reinforced. Assume that your community of users makes changes to their search parameters to favor your site or sites like yours. If this filters back to the Google algorithm, it could become another factor in achieving the high rankings that make your site outperform your competition!