29 July 2005 in Search Technology | Comments enabled

People may not be aware of it, but there is a major problem with Google. I call it the Google Curse.

For those of you that aren’t aware of it, I work as a developer at Intergen. Primarily I work on websites for various clients and with almost every website you have a search function. For most people the search functionality is an after thought and because of this often a simple search solution is implemented.

Search in the market has been taking off – thanks mostly to Google. Due to the nature of Microsoft, they want to ensure that Google doesn’t get too far ahead so they’ve started pouring resources into search too. All of this just leads to increased noise about the important of great search. This isn’t a bad thing – it’s really great as it’s only proving that competition is good for the consumer.

What is bad, is that now everyone wants to their search to “Work like Google“. I hate those words. I would need more fingers to count up how many times a client wants to match the power of Google.

It’s really quite amusing – non-tech people don’t seem to realise just how much effort Google has put into their search engine. They don’t seem to quite understand why you can’t put together a solution that could compete with Google’s search capabilities for a tiny budget. There are some very good search engines out there however it is a case of getting what you pay for – and New Zealand business is often priced out of the market.

I would love to know how much Microsoft has needed to spend to even try and match Google with MSN search.

Don’t misunderstand me on this – Google is simply one of the greatest pieces of technology currently available, however it’s also a curse to website developers trying to reach that unbelievably high bar.

– JD

P.S. It’s actually a testament to Google’s simplicity that everyday people seem to think it’s so basic that anyone could build an equivalent product.