Desktop search, is this hot?

I recently saw an article on desktop search and I began to wonder, is this something that's still a hot item? With all the negative press the desktop search got, is it still something that people will want to get involved with? My first inclination would be that many people found that it was too intrusive into private information. I'm sure that many businesses liked it as they could check upon employees very easily. To be able to search on your hard drive should be something that gives you a simple ability to find a file. It shouldn't be an all-encompassing big Brother that is looking over your shoulder. And looking at it from a distance now, I can see that that is the problem. Many people who are involved in technology don't see the big picture. They only see the wonderful things that a technology can do, without regard to the ramifications of it. It's the same thing with people who want to clone animals or even people. I find that kind of technology totally repugnant. Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you always should. Now I'm not saying that desktop search is on the same level as a cloning as a moral issue, but it does bring up the question of how much technology is too much. I saw a recent TV news show regarding a grocery store here locally that is allowing you to put your fingerprint as a wallet when used in their store. What you do is put your finger on this pad and it reads it and verifies who you are and becomes kind of a digital wallet. Although this could be convenient, it brings up questions as to what we are doing with technology. I believe we're slowly going down a road that we may regret later, where big Brother is always watching. The Bible talks about in Revelation, the mark of the beast and so on. We seem to be in a headlong rush for technology to do all sorts of neat things for us and some of that is okay, but some of it we need to take a hard look at and decide whether it is good for us are not. I believe it's the same way with desktop search, it outlines in a small way the question of technology and how we should be using it.

Search engines differing results presents opportunities.

This article in Information Week was very interesting regarding how search engines have very different results. Many people who do search marketing have seen in the past that many of the search engines were very much the same in their results. The reason that happened is that they all had similar relationships and some were borrowing results from other search engines. As a result, you didn't have to optimize content for so many different outlets. Now that is begun to change and we as search marketers must look at the many different ways that online marketing has to be approached. Clearly as a result of the differences in search algorithms from the different engines, it means that content in different web sites has to be search friendly on several different levels. No longer can one assume that good content will be pretty much the same across different search engines. That is just not true anymore. There are enough differences now that a web site must create valid content for a number of different avenues in ways they never had to before.
One of the things that the article talks about is meta search engines like Dogpile. As I stated in previous postings in the past, these meta search engines will probably become more important as variant results continue. It only makes sense that one would go to a place where they could get all the variant results on one page. Because there's enough differentiation in the search engine results page, it means that search engines themselves more or less become a commodity which can be repackaged and resold. It's not unlike any other product out there that becomes a commodity. I believe search results are becoming a commodity that people can use to their own advantage. Of course, search engines will always have revenue because of their advertising, but the natural search results will seem to have the various changes from one to another. So advertising could stay the same across many search engines because that has nothing to do with content, but who wants to pay the most for that spot. It doesn't have much to do with content other than someone editing it for general relevancy.

I think it's a positive step for everyone that search engines all have very different results. Who wants to get the same results across different search engines? So that's why the meta search results are going to be more important than ever. To aggregate those varying results into one place will be a powerful tool for the future.

A long break from search comment....

I've taken a long break from search engine news aggregation and comment. It wasn't something I really planned on, but it was something that I felt I needed to do. Sometimes we need to get a better perspective on what we're talking about, by not talking about it is much. I know that might not make much sense but there are times when we have to regroup and take a new look at how we do things.

Even in the short time that I've taken this break, search engines have changed quite a bit. I don't mean that they changed much in the way they function, but as many people know the results have been changing. The algorithms that we take for granted in search results have been changing and each particular search engine has its own new wrinkles. So I'm going to be writing about it again as I look at each individual search engine and hoping to gain a perspective that I haven't seen before. I think there are times to back away from things in order to see the big picture and I hope that's what I'm bringing here, not just for people who read this blog but also for myself.

More than anything else this commentary should be something that is enjoyable for myself and if it is, it will be enjoyable for others as well. I definitely find search marketing fascinating because every day can be a roll the dice, you never know what you may get or lose with the search engines.

Real results in web marketing, RealWebMarketing.com