Role of Search Engines
To understand the role of internet search engine in our daily lives, we must first understand what is an internet search engine and how it works?
In simple words, an internet search engine is a software which is designed for searching the internet for the desired search term and then return with the result which matches with the search query.
So the question arises, how does it do that? How does a search engine knows what kind of answer the user is looking for and how does it locate on which website the answers lies within.
This is where we must understand how an efficient search engine differs from a non efficient one.
Although it involves complex algorithms, usually a search engine gets the desired search query results by indexing the internet itself.
What do I mean when I say indexing the internet?
Well in simple terms search engine send their spiders or crawlers to crawl the website all across the globe and then index them accordingly.
So a search crawler will crawl the website, try to understand the content present there and then index them accordingly.
This process is repeated daily. However, you have to enable the robot.txt on your website for smooth crawling and indexing process, and in case you do not want any specific page or website to be crawled you can simply instruct the crawler in robot.txt to not index that page.
This way even if the information does match with the search query that page will not be displayed.
This is what I called the role of a search engine, i.e to index the internet properly.
However, these days to optimize the search and return, popular search engines are now personalizing your search.
Is there anything wrong with that? No, not really. Personalized search allows search engine to deliver accurate search results with higher probability and that matches much more with your preferences.
However, it also means it is storing information about you which it need to make your result personalized and optimized.
Which raises the question, that do they have our permission to do so?
On one hand we are getting faster and better results and on the other hand we are sacrificing our privacy for this.
This is what I mean when I refer to the fact how the role of search engine is changing from delivering results which rank on those queries to delivering results which matches more with our preferences.
Although the gap is not wide enough yet due to search engine companies still following privacy laws, however that gap is shrinking day by day not because they are greedy but because it is easier to develop personalized search which gives user much more satisfaction.
The satisfaction come from personal bias, as we as human, will choose those options more which will match more with our cultural and behavioral patterns.
I fear this might end up helping spread of fake news much more than control it, unless the company itself moves in to stop it.
These fears are somewhat realized by other people as well, and some have started developing alternate search engine which focus on privacy, they are calling them private search engines.
For example if a person travels to another country, if granted permission their android device updates itself and adjusts to their location. It changes the news, weather updates, time display and even if possible their search options.
Should this happen, yes. After-all, this is how you will remain updated to your surrounding, there are way people can get around it by using things such as a VPN for traveling.
However, my question is that Google will start showing you personalized results, it will ignore all other things, unless you open your browser in incognito mode or delete your cookies, it will show you personalized results even if you're present in another country.
So what do you think? Should Google personalize your search options when displaying result to you or do you want organic results which have earned Google top search results because they are optimized for those search queries?
Please understand there are pros and cons to both sides, so choose which one benefits you the most in your give time frame or situation.
So the question arises, how does it do that? How does a search engine knows what kind of answer the user is looking for and how does it locate on which website the answers lies within.
This is where we must understand how an efficient search engine differs from a non efficient one.
Although it involves complex algorithms, usually a search engine gets the desired search query results by indexing the internet itself.
What do I mean when I say indexing the internet?
Well in simple terms search engine send their spiders or crawlers to crawl the website all across the globe and then index them accordingly.
So a search crawler will crawl the website, try to understand the content present there and then index them accordingly.
This process is repeated daily. However, you have to enable the robot.txt on your website for smooth crawling and indexing process, and in case you do not want any specific page or website to be crawled you can simply instruct the crawler in robot.txt to not index that page.
This way even if the information does match with the search query that page will not be displayed.
This is what I called the role of a search engine, i.e to index the internet properly.
However, these days to optimize the search and return, popular search engines are now personalizing your search.
Is there anything wrong with that? No, not really. Personalized search allows search engine to deliver accurate search results with higher probability and that matches much more with your preferences.
However, it also means it is storing information about you which it need to make your result personalized and optimized.
Which raises the question, that do they have our permission to do so?
On one hand we are getting faster and better results and on the other hand we are sacrificing our privacy for this.
This is what I mean when I refer to the fact how the role of search engine is changing from delivering results which rank on those queries to delivering results which matches more with our preferences.
Although the gap is not wide enough yet due to search engine companies still following privacy laws, however that gap is shrinking day by day not because they are greedy but because it is easier to develop personalized search which gives user much more satisfaction.
The satisfaction come from personal bias, as we as human, will choose those options more which will match more with our cultural and behavioral patterns.
I fear this might end up helping spread of fake news much more than control it, unless the company itself moves in to stop it.
These fears are somewhat realized by other people as well, and some have started developing alternate search engine which focus on privacy, they are calling them private search engines.
For example if a person travels to another country, if granted permission their android device updates itself and adjusts to their location. It changes the news, weather updates, time display and even if possible their search options.
Should this happen, yes. After-all, this is how you will remain updated to your surrounding, there are way people can get around it by using things such as a VPN for traveling.
However, my question is that Google will start showing you personalized results, it will ignore all other things, unless you open your browser in incognito mode or delete your cookies, it will show you personalized results even if you're present in another country.
So what do you think? Should Google personalize your search options when displaying result to you or do you want organic results which have earned Google top search results because they are optimized for those search queries?
Please understand there are pros and cons to both sides, so choose which one benefits you the most in your give time frame or situation.
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