Search another way

Compared with most of the people I am a heavy user of search engines. Instead of making me a good follower of the classic search engine trends I find each day that I really angry on them. Nobody on this market tries to make things different. There is just a miriad of google replicas.

They have a good reason to fight with google. Google has the money. Every other player want's a piece of that pie. Unfortunately they forget a basic rule of the business world. You have to be different.


Just making a google copycat does not make you a big player. Well there is one exception Wolfram ... but it took a single man to drive that ... and he chose an iteresting but very complex solution. Much too complex.

Like most of the humans I'm more inclined to make graphic analysis. Even when I look at a google results page I do an automated filtering. I chose only some of the entryes, those entryes that the brain considers more important based on some black magic rules writen inside it.
It's like playing chess, you see only some of the moves ... only the important ones... all the rest are filtered. In the end is something that respects an old rule: "an image makes for a thousand words".

So, what has this to do with a search engine?
Well ... it has a lot. What if the search engine gives you the results in a graphical form?

There are endless posibilities here.
I will describe one very simple way to do that.

The logic of the search engine ranking is based on a set of conditions. Wich one has the most backlinks? What page has better metadata or headings that represent the content more clearly?
Those are values that describe eache page on the net and are included in the magical search engine equation. Does it work?
Some times yes ... most of the time only partialy.
Any analyst, knows that if you combine many variables thru an equation you simplify the job but also loose definition.
Why don't they present those variable in a clasical quadrant. One variable per axis.
Each quarter of the quadrant will mark the quality on a different scale.
You will be able to chose betwen pages that are better positioned becouse of the quality of the metadata, or pages that rank better on the "networking factor".

The graphical representation has one more advantage. A big one. You can display hundreds of results in a single page. Only when you zoom in you will get into details.
You can chose the metadata quarter and look for the best placed for keywords related with your chosen search string.
Zoom in/out on different areas of each quarter.
Select an area and chose text mode and it will show you the chosen pages in the clasic mode or offer you a direct preview as thubnails.

Of course the money are still there. What better way to put some ads than such a graphical representation. It will be much easier to display and even to digest the ads.


It can't be simpler than that. Even a child could do advanced searching that way.
It can go beyound anything that a current search engine can do.

And is not too complex.
Thay just have to think a litle.
They just have to try harder to improve the way we interact with the bulk of information they have. Do we ask for too much?


PS: In a previous post I've presented a concept of navigation that makes the search engine a smaller component than what it is right now. May be if they try to adapt they will live longer .... if not, try to gues.