October 14, 1996
Do search engines have a future?
By Bob O'Donnell
Ask anyone who uses the Web on a regular basis what the most popular sites are and
they'll probably tell you search engines. The figures I've seen confirm this. Other than
Netscape's home site, which has an unfair, built-in advantage, the lists of most
frequently visited sites invariably include Yahoo, InfoSeek, AltaVista,
Lycos, Excite, and
others like them.
Given the unstructured nature of the Web, this isn't surprising. In fact, I would bet
that nearly every trip to the Web includes at least one stop at a search engine, as people
try to find their way through the overwhelming mass of information that's now available.
For example, I use AltaVista regularly because it is the best way I've found to locate the
information I'm looking for.
But I have to wonder how long that's going to last. There's no question that search
engines will play some kind of role in the future, as the Web and the tools used to access
it continue to mature, but I think it's going to be a much smaller one than they currently
enjoy.
The reasons for this are several: First, both Netscape and Microsoft have talked at
great length about incorporating search capabilities into their browsers. This is a
logical extension to the current browsing paradigm and one that users will undoubtedly
take to very quickly. And as browsers get integrated into a computer's operating system,
or become part of the operating system, the searching mechanism will become embedded into
the computer's basic operation. In other words, it will be even further removed from
stand-alone search engine sites.
Second, as the notion of a browser is changing, the whole notion of and need for
searches will change. The development and use of intelligent agents that can search the
Web for you will reduce most surfers' need to do a search in the first place. Why bother
doing several independent searches when you can program multiple ongoing searches to be
done for you automatically? Again, Microsoft and Netscape have talked about incorporating
agent-like capabilities into their respective browsers and there are lots of little
startups working on similar projects as well.
Finally, there's a great deal interest in pushing content, and even applications, from
the Web straight to users' desktops, leaving out the middleman -- often a search engine --
in the process. New tools that enable this activity, including applications from Marimba and InterMind,
are appearing on the Web almost every week. What these new tools are providing is
analogous to a subscription service: readers can "subscribe" to selected content
providers and receive their information regularly -- instead of having to browse the Web
for new articles that may or may not have been released. The implications of widespread
use of these content delivery mechanisms goes well beyond the search engines, but the
search engines' traffic will definitely be reduced if they become popular.
The search engine companies are certainly aware of all these issues and are working on
greatly expanding their services so that they don't get lost in the Web's continuing
shuffle. Adding site reviews and relevancy ratings to searches, for example, can do
nothing but help extend their usefulness. Still, I wonder what the search engine landscape
will look like by next year or early 1998. My guess is we won't even recognize it.
©
Copyright 1996, by InfoWorld Publishing Corp., a
subsidiary of IDG Communications, Inc. Reprinted from InfoWorld,
155 Bovet Road, San Mateo, CA 94402. Further reproduction is prohibited.
