Chapter 12
Customizing Search
Google has ruined search.
Not just Google search, Yahoo! search and any other Web-based search engine that you've ever used. Ruined it for business users, for SharePoint administrators, and for portal and Web designers.
Let's say, for instance, that your significant other really likes fondue. So, on a little weekend jaunt to Des Moines, you're trying to surprise him with some melted cheese and a nice bottle of wine. You go to your favorite search page and type in “Best Fondue Des Moines” and you get back a list of 18 restaurants. Odds are, you'll end up going to the restaurant, have some darn fine cheese and chocolate-covered strawberries, and thank the fine people of Google/Yahoo!/Microsoft Live for pointing you in that direction and getting you a few points with your boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse.
An unmitigated success for Web-based search, right? The search engine found exactly what you were looking for, right? Not necessarily. There's a dirty little secret in the whole multi-billion-dollar-a-year search process. How can you be sure that you really found the best fondue restaurant in all of Des Moines? What makes it the best? Does Google factor in meat quality or the quality of the service? Of course not. Do they rank the wine lists and the wait times? No. Do they have an index of all your likes and dislikes? Well, knowing Google, they probably do. But as of today, most search engines simply catalog the number of times that Web pages list that restaurant ...
