The Most Interesting Things Are Elsewhere
First off – if the website isn’t Google, Yahoo, Ice Rocket, Technorati or the like, I don’t understand the benefits of including a ‘search the web’ search option.
Especially for news companies like CNN. If I went to CNN to look up a news story (which I don’t – but lets say I used MSM for my news) – I’d expect the search to dig through CNN’s archive by default.
Nope – searches ‘Yahoo’ if I don’t select the ‘CNN.com’ radio button. Bizarre.
It’s like saying, “thanks for coming by – everything you’re likely to care about is elsewhere, go now”.
My must-read Doc Searls is guilty of the same crime. Instead of searching his site, search defaults to ‘all blogs’ spidered by Technorati. He is on the Technorati board, so I understand why it’s an option. Still, I came to Doc’s site (or CNN’s) to find out what they had to say on a topic. If I wanted to hear what the rest of the world had to say, I’d ask Google.
I’m cool with the ‘search everything’ option being there – just not as a default.
4 Comments
The answer: media companies get a nice chunk of money for having “Search The Web” option. Search engines frequently try to outbid each other for the placement on major news sites. (That doesn’t explain Doc Searls’ motivations, of course.)
Thanks Rex.
It didn’t feel like there was any customer value in the decision.
I’m rushed between planes at LAX and not in a good position to look into what you’re talking about. And I *want* to address it. I’m just not sure what the context is here. Can you describe the problem, where and how it happens, etc.? Thanks!
Doc
Thanks Doc
Over on the right-hand side of doc.weblogs.com is the ‘Technorati Search’ – here’s a screenshot:
When I enter a query, say, looking up your first mention of ‘KYOU’ – by default I’m actually searching all of Technorati. This search returns 2 of your posts – or more accurately 2 instances of the same recent post.
Whereas, when I click the ‘this blog’ radio button (what I wanted by default) – I get the post your wrote 182 days ago.
Not sure the post’s exact date from the search results for all of the link titles are the same – “The Doc Searls Weblog : Wednesday, October 26,…” – but that’s a different post.