Are We Changing The Way We Search?

Everyone knows by now, that Google is the most popular search engine on the planet.  But are we happy with the way we search for information on the Internet?

Would we prefer to search in a similar way to which we find out information from other people – by asking questions?

This new concept is being tested out by a website called Wolfram Alpha.  Although this new breed of search engine is in early development, it is showing promising signs.

The concept behind the search engine is that you ask it questions rather than try and find information by using search terms.  For example, rather than typing “President of the United States” (as you would into Google) you can type “Who is the President of the United States” into Wolfram Alpha.

Wolfram Alpha then attempts to decipher your question and provide an answer to the question, rather than just matching it to a lot of different web pages that are related to your query.

At the moment, there are many questions which are misinterpreted or simply not understood by Wolfram Alpha, but it does have to be noted that it is in the very early stages of development.

Why not try it out yourself?  You may be surprised at how functional it is already.

There is of course also a amusing side where you can ask it questions such as “Why do I smell?” or “Where are my slippers?“!

Obviously, Google is in a very strong position currently and isn’t expected to have a serious challenge for first place in the search engine market for at least a few years.  But could Google have to rethink the core basis of its search engine to keep up with the way that Internet users want to search for information.

Despite Google boasting a large index of websites, it is estimated to have only indexed 0.02% of the total amount of information on the Internet currently.