Over the past 14 years, Google has set the standard for online search. The ability to access expansive amounts of information on a global scale and deliver links full of information to our fingertips was, and is, revolutionary.
On an average day, Google crawls through 20 billion web pages, and serves 100 billion searches every month. These numbers will only continue to increase, as data increases exponentially. It’s no secret that this data overload is causing a lot of problems.
One unexpected and dramatic impact of this influx of information is that it has exposed the weaknesses of the current design of search as we know it.
Today’s search is flawed
Today’s search function is mainly linking to mostly static content. It is not able to differentiate on an individual level which of the potentially relevant answers is the most accurate one for your particular search just by referencing popular keywords — it uses a popularity algorithm as a proxy to solve this. But, as we know, what’s popular isn’t always the answer to our specific question or search. Likewise, modern lifestyles have experienced the limitations of the mobile interface, making it difficult to research topics on the go.
These factors reveal a fundamental problem with search today: it’s not a dynamic and flexible process. Surely, in today’s world we need more than a search page with a list of blue URL links to sort through when we’re looking for recommendations, advice, diagnosis and other methods of finding and exploring information and products in the digital age.