Sunday, October 2, 2011

Internet Seeks Better Search ∞

I’ve always been perplexed by people’s amazement by Google’s search results, because, well, they’re just not very good. That’s not say Bing’s or Yahoo’s are better; they aren’t. I’m fond of DuckDuckGo. But can’t we do better?

I was looking for an article published several days ago by the Times (site:nytimes.com). I knew it was about what was once thought to be the world’s longest building. (It never was.) I was pretty sure it was built in Switzerland, and I knew it discussed architecture and public housing at reasonable length.

But all those details weren’t enough to locate the article. I resorted to digging through my recycling to find it. Why? Because the article I was looking for discussed the architects, and it turns out nowhere was the word “architecture” printed.

So is Google unstoppable, or is no one really trying?