“can we bring shampoo to great barrier”

That was the search string used at Google’s search engine leading a visitor to one of my pages. Besides the fact that Google did send me a new visitor and this fellow was obviously environmental friendly…… I felt very annoyed about seeing this query string listed in my sites search statistics.

Doesn’t it dramatically show that normal internet user (surfer) are helpless overstrained with actual technologies?

Sure, Google – as also all other modern search engines – does work with modern full text search algorithm, knowing all about high sophisticated way to optimize the user query. Stripping away useless filler words and picking up reasonable searching term is usual practice today without question!

But what does this people expect? Just a quick “Cut&Paste” of the first chapter of the bible does not give you a valid search result directly leading you to god and the ultimate answer to everything!!

Looking behind, search engines are nothing different than highly specialized databases running with a “user friendly” interface allowing an easy querying of the stored data basis within. And even the order of the given search terms have a significant influence on the fact whether or not you will get a useful result.

Think about and try it your own …. searching for “shampoo & great barrier” will for sure come back with much more search results than a “great barrier & shampoo”. This is easy to understand, when you are aware that it is a given fact, that it is much more ususal to publish general info about shampoo, than writing about shampoo carried to the Great Barrier Reef!

Years ago, within a private discussion with a friend, I pointed out my opinion that, considering about the growing amount of data daily published on the internet, a new profession like an professional and reliable “Internet Scout” being trained to find authentic and trust worth information on the net quickly and reliable will become an urgent need in future ….. looks like I was right ….