The World Wide $#@%@$ing Web!

© 2000 Updated 11:00 PM ET December 23, 2000

Search engines need to improve to keep their audience from going berserk with Web-rage, a new survey suggests.

Welcome to the World Wide $#%!ing Web, where it takes just thirty seconds of a bumpy information expedition to transform some tech-loving clickaholics into lunatics, a survey has found.

On average, Web-rage is uncaged after twelve minutes of fruitless searching, although about seven percent of the 566 people surveyed by Roper Starch Worldwide say ire starts rising within three minutes.

The main culprit: All that information--overwhelming at times--which is actually driving some people offline and back to telephoning customer service or other information resources from the pre-cyber generation.

At last count, search engine Google was perusing 1.3 billion Web pages, which isn't even 20 percent of the capacity under just the ".com" top level domain (TLD). The Web will get even more crowded next year when addresses with even new TLDs start rolling out.

"A great majority, (86 percent) of Internet users feel that a more efficient way to search the Web for accurate information should be in place," Roper Starch Worldwide researchers wrote.

The survey also found that nearly a third of Web users say they need to spend about two hours a week searching for the information they want, with a majority (71 percent) becoming frustrated regardless of whether they are successful or not.

Danny Sullivan, editor of SearchEngineWatch.com, points out another telling statistic: that more than half, or about 54 percent of those using search engines, don't get frustrated by wrong results.

"Maybe that underscores the fact that a majority expects to get wrong information," he said.

Sullivan adds that some sites, like Ask.com or MSN, are also making life a little easier for its users. The two sites take into account that people don't always know how to spell what they are looking for.

MSN, for example, found that people were using dozens of different spellings of "HotMail," he said. So MSN took that into account when deciding on what answers to return.

While it doesn't name any engines by name, the survey does take a swipe at those that return a large number of results, such as Google or Alta Vista. The survey was sponsored by natural language search engine WebTop.

Google spokesman David Krane was quick to say the search engine isn't perfect, and its evolution is not complete. But that doesn't mean it's simply spewing out an uncontrollable pile of Web pages.

"Google hasn't achieved our objective to build the perfect search engine as of yet," he said. "At the same time, one of the attributes we're particularly proud of is that Google does deliver highly relevant and accurate search results, which is one area we are very proud of."

-- Uncle Bob (unclb0b@aol.com), December 24, 2000

Answers

http://www.google.com/

-- (excellent@search.engine), December 24, 2000.

There is a difference between search engines. Compare the top ten results of an AltaVista search on y2k with the top ten results of a Google search on y2k. The top sites Google turns up were obviously referred to by more people last year than the sites AltaVista turns up.

Or try entering the name of your city in AltaVista and then Google. Notice the difference.

-- (search@engine.difference), December 24, 2000.

Hey, I like DOGPILE the best!

Happy holidays to all!!!

-- Flash (nazflash@northlink.com), December 24, 2000.

Flash!!!!! Wondered where you'd been all this time. Happy Holidays from Us in LV!!!

U.B., I'm thinking many (most?!) of us already had the seeds of raging lunacy planted long before we got on the WWW. Call it a hunch :-)

Google is my favorite, with Dogpile a close second.

-- Patricia (PatriciaS@lasvegas.com), December 24, 2000.

I use Yahoo and I always find what I'm looking for pretty fast. That might have something to do wtih your connection speed too...with a cable modem you can trot around real time...with the old modem, it did drive me insane.

The other day I was trying to think of the name of a song Neil Young had sang at a concert I saw in 1986...and I thought maybe I'd find it in a discography..on some old album of his. First site I came to had "Playlists from show 1980-2000"...and I went right to the playlist of the actual show and found the song. Talk about convienent!

-- kritter (kritter@adelphia.net), December 24, 2000.

Check this out:

http://www.cen.uiuc.edu/exploring.html

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), December 24, 2000.

I read somewhere that Google has the best search algorithms. (maybe they should hire Al Gore to promote their algorithms). I hate to admit it but I am inclined to use the search engines with the coolest names. Several years ago that meant HotBot. Now I go with Google and Dogpile. "Dogpile", I love it. Dogpile also claims to do its search using everyone else's search engine. I don't think that's fair but it makes sense.

The big breakthru will come when a search engine can truly understand a question that is posed to it. AskJeeves claims to do this but they really don't.

This whole issue is an example of human perversity. The Internet, search engines, etc were not even imaginable 15 years ago. Now this miracle is so ubiquitous that we take it for granted and even bitch when it is less than perfect. Humans are never satisfied and mostly that is good. Otherwise, we would still be huntin' and gatherin'.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), December 24, 2000.

It's easy to forget that one of the best ways to search for information is just a phonecall away--the Reference desk at your public library. These people are amazing and they seem to like the challenge. Unlike search engines, they actually understand what you are looking for. Their service is free and they will call you back when they have found something. It's almost enough to make me a Socialist. Almost.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), December 24, 2000.