History of the Search Engine [infographic]

History of the Search Engine

Do you know how we got to today’s search engines? The history of the search engine is interesting reading …

First there was Archie. This was, actually, the word “Archive” without the “v”.

Veronica and Jughead followed quickly (playing on the Archie Comics theme)

These were simple listings.

Quickly, search technology improved with Google appearing in 1998.

This fasinating infographic shows the evolution of the Search Engine. It’s worth taking a little bit of time to follow search engines from birth to 2010.

History of the Search Engine - Infographic

Infographic byWordStream Internet Marketing

 

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I want Google Search (again)

I have come across this sentiment often (that is – users want “Google Search”. (See my earlier post “We want Google“)

TSG’s blog post really captures some great ways of handling this…

 

  • 43% of Total Google Search Queries Are Local (prweb.com)

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Promise #14 – Beta Testing SLIKK

Refer14 Unfulfilled Promises

Background

In my post “Beta Testing SLIKK” I mentioned how I had applied for an “invitation” to Beta test the SLIKK engine.

Verdict

Promise Fulfilled

See my post that was finished recently here:

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Beta Testing SLIKK – My feedback

In my earlier post “Beta testing SLIKK” I described how I requested an invitation to Beta test SLIKK – a site that was offering a new way of searching.

Well after about a week, I got my invitation, and sat down to give SLIKK a test drive.

Here are my findings…

SLIKK Search Application

The SLIKK Search application is a Search Interface that aims to provide the “new” way of searching.

SLIKK Features

On the surface, SLIKK looks like a great tool. Its features include:

SEARCH ENGINE

SLIKK can be configured to return search results from either Google, Yahoo/Bing, or SLIKK’s own results. Google Results are selected by default.

CONTENT TYPE

SLIKK provides search results based on source material:

  • Web
  • Images
  • News
  • Video
  • Blogs
  • Twitter

MULTI-VIEW

With Multi-view, a spilt screen can be displayed to show you two different groups of results. (For example – “Web” search results on the left, and “Video” search results on the right.)

OPEN SEARCH RESULTS

SLIKK offers the ability to open the source page, that the search result is pointing to, in a small “child” window. This is not a preview, but the actual page. Further to that you can open multiple ” source pages” and have these open either in a series of tabs or “tiled. Then you have the choice of changing it to full screen, etc.

MY LINKS

You can select from a selection of sites (Google Maps, Twitter, etc) or you can enter your own, so that these appear in the top of the SLIKK page.

What I thought of SLIKK

At first glance SLIKK appears to be a great application.

However, when I looked closer at each feature, I started to think “ok…but what is the real advantage that is offered here?”

Search Engine – You can select the search engine that you want the search results from. Really – I can easily do the same by going to the Google site and executing a search there, or going to the Bing search and executing the search there.

Content Type – This is nothing that the “legacy” search engines didn’t already offer. However – to be able to get Twitter results was definitely something I was happy with.

Multi-View – Initially I thought that this was pretty cool. But , to be honest, there wasn’t really that much advantage to this feature. The only value I saw was if you wanted to see, side-by-side, search results for something while viewing what was being tweeted about it the same time. But then…how often do you want to do that?

Open Search Results – Note – this is not a “preview” feature similar to what Google offers. It is a “child window” with the source site in it. In these times of tabbed browsers, I wa struggling to find a real advantage to this.

My Links – When I first clicked on this (and saw the screen displayed above), I thought that it would offer real value. But all it does is display the name of the site in the top of the screen which, when clicked on, will open the site in a new tab, or window. In short – bookmarks/favorites.

Overall…
  I found that SLIKK was not actually that Slick. I certainly applaud the owners of SLIKK for what they are doing, but I feel that the big Search Engines are already able to offer so much more.

Beta Community

SLIKK have a Beta program in place. And there is a forum, and a blog (as well as a Facebook page etc). They do seem quite receptive to input from users and appear to be trying hard to create something that people want.

I wish them the best of luck.

  • Beta Testing SLIKK
  • Search the way you like it, with Slikk
  • New Search Engine Slikk.com Launches at DEMO Spring 2012
  • Search and browse simultaneously with Slikk

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Beta Testing SLIKK

While doing some research to help someone I’m “mentoring” (as part of the AIIM “Enthusiasts Club” I came across the SLIKK search engine.

This appears to use search results from Google but offers a number of useful ways to view them, as well as the website, or source that they are pointing at.

The site is still in Beta Testing, and is “by invitation only” so I’ll see what happens. If it all goes good, then I’ll keep you up-to-date.

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We want Google! – The number one requirement in Enterprise Search

All the users wanted was Google

One of the things I come across often when discussing client’s requirements for an Enterprise Search system is that they “want Google search”.

When I delve deeper I often discover that the client wants to be able to type one or two words in a small text box, and get back exactly the document that they were looking for. Within seconds.

What they don’t see…

Unfortunately, what the client doesn’t always see, or is aware of, is that there is a lot of work put into making Google work efficiently and that there is a staff of Google employees monitoring, and tweaking, and caring for the Google search engine. What the client also doesn’t realise is that Google (the company) has over 100 million servers around the world dedicated to indexing the internet.

Jeff Carr has written an article (Enterprise Search and Pursuit of the Google Experience.) that examines what happens when a google search is performed. He also writes “rather than posing the question why can’t we? we need to ask ourselves how can we

(The included video by Google engineer Matt Cutts is also very interesting)

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