Are search engines facing extinction?

It might seem odd to suggest that search engines are dead given Google's rude health and Microsoft's recent interest in acquiring Yahoo! to increase its presence in search, but it would seem a few people I have spoken to recently are starting to wonder if search engines are as useful as they once were.

The main point of contention seems to be the value of getting 67,000,000 responses to a search query when perhaps just a few would be more useful, especially if what is shown is very much more relevant -- and by my definition, not those who have spent a fortune on SEO. Like a social network profile if searching for a person; a business directory or network for a company; or a fact-based wiki for pretty much anything else.

And that's the thing, many people now know other web services they'd go to first when searching on something specific. Search engines could easily turn into a last resort if you can't find what you need elsewhere, or actively want to waste your time to scanning through a million results.

I had a forum debate with the managing director of a business directory recently about whose site was better: his directory or my business lead and referral site. I'll spare you the tittle tattle, but his assertion was that his site was better because if you typed "accountant" it came back with 22,000 entries. I said WeCanDo.BIZ was better because it came back with a handful, but within those you could see which of those was used and endorsed by your own business contacts. Few people need 22,000 accountants, but if they did then his site would be better (how you use that information is a moot point). I believe a person would be likely to choose one business over any of the 22,000 others if came with a recommendation from someone they know and trust. Not hard to do -- you just mash up a business listing with your social graph, as we have done at WeCanDo.BIZ.

And this got me thinking. If I search for a friend or a specific person, why do I need 714,000 responses with irrelevant content or many multiple entries referring only fleetingly to the person I am trying to find? Why would I not go to Facebook or LinkedIn -- or even Spock, which attempts to consolidate a person's profile on all -- instead? These days, it stands me in better stead for getting straight to who I want without having to read everything written about them by strangers.

And then there is everything else. So I want to know what happened to car maker TVR? Type that into Google and I get 18,000,000 entries. But the most reliable version of TVRs current status possibly sits on Wikipedia, with a link to the official website if I want the marketing version of why they aren't making cars any more.

We are all used to searching on Google but has finding information on teh web moved on under Web 2.0? Is Google actually the best resource for loacting information we can easily and arguably better get elsewhere? Google has grown massively on the back of companies spending money to get listed higher with their keywords, but this is an arms race from which there is ultimately only one winner - Google. No one can be first forever unless you are prepared to pay. And, interestingly, Google's search has hardly developed recently, with most of its efforts and money now going into new ventures such as Google Earth, Google Apps and the Android mobile operating system. Perhaps Google shares the same vision for the future of search engines as I do?

Ian Hendry
WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz