Finders, seekers

Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Ask.com are all trying to diversify their search engines in an attempt to attract more users. Realistically though, will anyone come up with a more user-friendly engine than Google?

For many years, Google has had a virtual monopoly on the search industry. And while a number of competitors are striving to make their mark on the search engine market, recent research suggests they still have a long way to go to catch up. According to Hitwise, Google have a market share of 65 percent, way ahead of its nearest competitor, Yahoo! (21 percent); these two are followed by MSN with eight percent and Ask.com on four percent.

Each of the big players have differentiating features, as Mike Davis, Senior Analyst at Ovum, explains. “Google’s success is down to its clean user interface,” he says. “As I understand it, there are just seven characters on the Google entry page – it’s just Google.com. This means loading takes place very quickly. The fact that it loads faster is a major differentiator over MSN and others; it means it keeps people longer.”

Another feature that enhances Google’s homepage are the logo designs that change daily and relate to specific holidays or events that are taking place on that date. Known as ‘doodles’, they are unique to Google. “The beauty of this is that it keeps the user engaged,” suggests Davis. “Google has realized that although internet users use web pages to find knowledge like using a library, they want a more updated service. So Google has similar connotations to that of a newspaper stand that you walk past as you go to work each day. If your daily newspaper showed the same headline each day you wouldn’t buy it. You need variety each day and I think the same applies with the internet.”

iGoogle, Live Search
Despite these good points, Davis is slightly critical of Google’s recently re-launched iGoogle, believing that once you get past the entry screen it becomes too cluttered. He thinks that Yahoo!’s search engine suffers from the same flaw. “Yahoo! has always been let down by the fact that it has a very busy entry page. This excess clutter means that the page is slow to load. As we all know, fast loading is an absolute necessity when it comes to the internet.”

Microsoft is confident that its recently launched Live Search will be a real contender against Google and Yahoo! in the future, despite the fact that the number of user hits it receives is still drastically lagging behind both its rivals. However, according to Davis, the search engine has some strong points including an intuitive interface.

Ask.com is another search engine that Davis rates highly. “With Ask.com, even if you have not been specific enough to define the item you want, it will give you pointers and leads to make sure that you do.” Ask.com’s real strength is that it really pushes the advance search function forward. Many users of Google, Yahoo! and Live Search fail to switch on the advance search function even though all three have the ability. “Because of this, a user might come back with seven million hits, when they were only looking for four. This is the user’s fault. The option of being able to refine a search down using the knowledge they already have in the advanced search is there. This is one of the issues Ask is trying to overcome.”

Google versus everyone
Given the popularity of Google as a search engine, any company who wants to give them a run for their money will need to come up with some inventive ideas. “The sorts of advances in interface we are likely to see are going to be incremental rather than revolutionary,” predicts Davis. “Unless a brand new player enters the market and comes completely from the leftfield, which is exactly what Google did. Google wants to be that player, which is why if you are a very senior engineer at the company you have to spend one day a week doing your own research, creating and investigating new ideas.”

As a result, Davis believes there is every possibility that Google might come up with the best new user interface. At the moment he thinks interfaces are still very two-dimensional; however, they are evolving at lightening speed, and he cites the iPhone’s touch screen and the Cover Flow function found in iTunes as illustrations of the rate at which interfaces are changing. “Cover flow enables a user to stack up all their downloaded albums and covers in a window, so finding a particular track is much easier. Say you only see the side of an album, maybe just the color, you will know that it contains about 12 tracks. In that instance you will have 12 bits of information just from single view. If you had 10 albums, similarly you would get at least 100 pieces of information in front of your eyes immediately. This is much more results than you would get with a straightforward search. Usually when we do a search we search for something we’ve spotted before. Most of the time we already have some visual clues to make this happen. I think interfaces need to change markedly if we are to cope with the wider range of information that’s available.”

One absent feature of all the major search engines is the need for them to be more geographically centered. Often a search will be based on a localized item, so search should ideally be able to streamline any results. Refining search is a function that Davis expects to see become more targeted in the future. “Search engines are going to have to be more sophisticated in terms of what they deliver,” he said. “There will be more personalization to get the most appropriate results.”

Wikiasari
Last year Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales announced his intention to introduce a new search engine called Wikiasari that will use the same user-based technology as Wikipedia, his open access encyclopedia. Wales hope that one day this search engine will overtake Google and become the first choice for internet users. On unveiling his venture, he announced that “Google is very good at many types of search, but in many instances it produces nothing but spam and useless crap. Try searching for the term ‘Tampa hotels’, for example, and you will not get any useful results.”

Davis is encouraged by the idea as, just with Wikipedia, Wikiasari will draw from users’ experiences to help come up with more targeted results. “The idea behind Wikiasari is similar to what might take place in, let’s say, an office. People search on the internet, find good results, then share this information with colleagues and point you to the right source. Wikiasari will, essentially, be based on personal recommendations. This helps eliminate the rubbish and makes the search more refined. There are already many commercial recommendations out there that support Internet search. A basic example is Amazon. When you buy a book from them they also inform you about what other people who got the same book bought.”

The gold rush
There is all to play for in the enterprise search arena, and it isn’t inconceivable that Google might one day be knocked off its perch. Competitors such as Microsoft are desperate to make their mark in the market – so much so that Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, reportedly threw a chair across the room in disgust when he heard that one of his top engineers was leaving to join Google. With this amount of passion flying around, Google had better make sure it doesn’t let its guard down even for a second.

“Microsoft wants to dominate this market,” confirms Davis. “It recognizes that it is behind with Live Search, so they are going to invest spectacularly in order to win the top share. However, Google is always searching for the next big thing, with employees allowed 20 percent of their time for personal research. This freedom has already resulted in the development of radical ideas such as Google Earth and Google Maps. The market is really dynamic at the moment. We have the four big players, but there is still plenty of opportunity if somebody comes up with an incredibly pervasive user interface.”