Search Engines Haven't Evolved

“Every once in a while, a new technology, an old problem, and a big idea turn into an innovation.”
---Dean Kamen (American Businessman}

In 1876 Melvil Dewey introduced the Dewey Decimal System. His library classification system allowed new books to be added to a library in their appropriate location based on their subject.
 
His decimal number classification system introduced the concepts of relative location and a relative index. Libraries previously placed books on shelf locations that were related to the order of acquisition rather than topic. His system used three-digit numbers for main classes, with fractional decimals allowing the expansion of further subcategories. Dewey’s system is still used in 200,000 libraries in at least 135 countries today.
 
Keep in mind that all this was done before the information age. Today, computers and artificial intelligence make this type of categorization simplistic. Why then haven’t tech entrepreneurs capitalized on this type of system to revolutionize the search engine industry?
 
There are twenty-nine general search engines in use today. They include the likes of Google, Baidu, Brave, and Bing. Every year or so, a handful of startups enter the market with little or no real leaps in technology. They are built along the same lines as Google: word driven; and rely on web crawlers to scan every page of a website for exact phrase matches or near subject matches.
 
Those phrase and near subject matches produce search results based on the end-user’s input. Oftentimes end-user’s have to run multiple strings to find a match on the results they’re looking for. In short, the interfaces aren’t very friendly. A search engine with a comprehensive subject index would be much more helpful.
 
 A search engine with a numerical subject-based indexing system doesn’t exist today. Nor has one ever. You can largely thank the tech entrepreneurs and their engineering teams at Google and Microsoft for this. You can also point the blame at the lack of creativity in the tech market.
 
Simply put, the existing business models do not allow for innovation or generational leaps in technology. Google and Bing’s business models are both entirely based around paid search. Their engineering teams categories search results on their worth to their respective companies rather than a website’s value to their end-users. Entrepreneurs that have attempted to enter the market have mirrored their business models.
 
Arguably, it wouldn’t take a team of NASA scientists to revolutionize the industry. At a high level there really are only fifteen categories of searches internet users engage in. The categories include:

1. News
2. Sports
3. Entertainment
4. Retail
5. Religion
6. Medical
7. Self-Help
8. Consumer Services
9. Professional Services
10. Business Services
11. Food & Restaurant
12. Directory Searches (people, maps, dating, etc.)
13. Educational
14. Weather
15. Government Services
16. Adult (Pornographic) Content

 
Artificial intelligence could be employed to group sites into subcategories underneath these categories, and from there the technology possibilities are endless.
 
Drop-down menus could be employed, and pages could be categorized based on a relative index value and/or end-user feedback. Sub-searches based on a character strings could also be employed to help users find specific goods, services, or educational materials that meet their needs.
 
Arguably, a subscription business model would work under this type of scenario. From an end-user’s perspective a Dewey Decimal-like search engine would be well worth the value, eliminating paid-search results and placing the information, goods, and services right at their fingertips with far fewer queries.

“Little children understand wisdom; and unwise men pursueth wisdom.”
---Proverbs 8:5

Author: Erik Gagnon - Managing Partner, Chi Rho Consulting