The results from one search engine can be quite different when compared to
another. The article below from the Utne Reader explains why.
kelly
Aug 14 , 1999
Finders Keepers
How Internet search engines control our access to information
By Elizabeth Larsen, Utne Reader
Yahoo!, Infoseek, AltaVista, HotBot, GoTo.com. If you've ever done
research on the Internet, chances are you've used a search engine. The
process is easy and often quite satisfying: Just type in one or more
keywords, hit return, and then watch as a slew of hyperlinked results
scrolls down the screen. It's like having your very own card catalog
wired into your computer. Or is it? As the lucrative Internet search
business evolves, the information you seek may be tainted by the
almighty buck.
First, a few basics about how search engines make money. According to
Lisa Allen, an analyst with Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Forrester
Research, search engines generate revenue in several ways. Besides
selling banner ads that run across the top of their Web pages or
striking distribution deals with content providers, search engines
also sell what are referred to in the industry as "targeted keyword
buys." What this means is that Ford can buy the right to have a Ford
Explorer banner ad pop up anytime someone types the word Ford into a
search engine. It also means that if Ford declines to buy its brand
name, General Motors can snatch it up.
While this extremely targeted sell job is enough to make any
marketing-leery Web user nervous, it stops just short of skewing the
hierarchy of your search results. GoTo.com has taken it a step
further. The Pasadena-based search engine has designed an ad-free site
that makes money by taking bids for "priority search-result
placement," as Dow Jones Interactive (Feb. 18, 1999) puts it. In other
words, companies pay a premium to be listed at the top of the
search-results page--whether or not the link is relevant to the
search.
The impact of this practice cannot be underestimated, says Andrew
Shapiro, director of the Aspen Institute Internet Policy Project and
author of The Control Revolution (PublicAffairs, June 1999). "Studies
have demonstrated the existence of a phenomenon called 'screen bias'
where users--not surprisingly--are most likely to choose the
information options that are presented to them first. Given the amount
of data smog we're exposed to, it would be strange if we didn't choose
among the first few options that are presented to us."
There is nothing inherently wrong in paying for premium placement,
says Lisa Allen, noting that it's a routine practice in both
supermarkets and bookstores. Still, selling keyword searches is more
insidious, because the majority of users don't understand that they
are receiving information that has commercial goals. "When you open a
magazine," she says, "information that is provided by advertisers is
clearly marked 'advertorial,' which gives readers a heads-up on how to
evaluate the content. When users rely on a piece of information and
think it's a critical judgment when it's a piece of puffery, they get
burned."
The real problem, says Shapiro, is that the Internet industry has yet
to develop guidelines on how to distinguish advertising from editorial
content. "Norms haven't developed online the way they have in other
media, where the church-state divide between ads and editorial is
established enough that we notice when it is breached." And until such
guidelines are accepted, the Internet will continue to slip
"dangerously close to an environment that resembles the oligopoly of
traditional electronic media. The dream of a media world in which
'everyone is a publisher' may well go unfulfilled unless there is a
way to preserve some space for the voices of small commercial outlets,
nonprofits, and individuals."
Before we start pining for the days before corporate behemoths
discovered that there was a way to make money from selling
information, Jenny Tobias, associate librarian at the library of the
Museum of Modern Art in New York, offers a sobering reminder:
Information has never been democratic. "Information for everybody is a
good goal that has been tried, but a goal that people have failed to
accomplish," she says. "Which communities have libraries and which
don't are political questions, as is the question of who chooses the
information that goes into those libraries."
But what if you are an especially savvy Web user who is able to
distinguish between search results that are neutrally organized and
those that are merely vehicles for advertisers? Does the business of
search engines still affect you? Yes, says Sanford Berman, head
cataloger for the Hennepin County Library in Minnesota. "An effective
search needs to be intelligently indexed by somebody who can supply
the appropriate cross-references," he explains.
While Yahoo! employs a team to both categorize and cross-reference
their listings, most search engines rely only on keyword searches,
which Berman says do not give the researcher the most accurate
results--especially when a keyword has multiple synonyms.
The problem is no different from any other challenge facing consumers
today, says Tobias. And her advice is equally familiar: Buyer, beware.
Given the enormous volume and the ephemerality of information
available today, keyword searches are the appropriate future for
information retrieval. The key to using search engines effectively,
she argues, is to understand the business of information. Be savvy
about business practices on the Net and shop around to find the search
engine that best suits your needs. You might discover more than you
set out to find.
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