Transcript
Alternatives to Google
Dirk Lewandowski Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Department of Information, Germany dirk.lewandowski@haw-hamburg.de http://www.searchstudies.org/dirk @Dirk_Lew Lund University, March 18, 2014
Outline
1. Web search today 2. Results presentation and selection 3. Alternative search engines 4. Conclusion
1. Web search today
Web Search today
• Everyone uses search engines (Purcell, Brenner & Raine, 2012; van Eimeren & Frees, 2012)
• Search is huge à More than 175 billion queries in a single month (ComScore data, December 2012)
• Search is everywhere: News, video, maps, e-commerce, mobile, apps, etc. • Web search market is dominated by Google (especially in Europe)
(ComScore data) • Users rely on
– Google’s method of ordering results
– Google’s method of collecting data
à Using the internet – Using search engines – using Google à If Google hasn’t seen it — and indexed it — or kept it up to date, it can’t be found with a search query.
Search engines’ business model
• Ads, ads, ads • Approx. 83% of
Google‘s revenues come from ads (Q4/2013)
Google Quarterly Earnings Summary Q3/2013, http://investor.google.com/pdf/2013Q4_google_earnings_slides.pdf
What about the alternatives to Google?
• Many “seems to be” search engines – Accessing the data of another search engine
– Representing nothing more than an alternative user interface to one of the more well-known engines
– In many cases, that turns out to be Google
– E.g., in Germany, we can see that the major internet portals T-Online, GMX, AOL, and web.de all display results obtained from Google
Partner model
• “Real” search engine providers such as Google and Bing operate their own search engines but also provide their search results to partners
• All the major web portals have now embraced this model.
• Income through ads; revenue-sharing
• Attractiveness of the model – The search engine provider encounters only minimal costs
– The operator of the portal no longer needs to go to the great expense of running its own search engine.
– The partner index model has served to thin out the competition in the search industry.
2. Results presentation and selection
Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs)
• Four main areas: – Organic results
– Navigational elements, drill-down menus, etc.
– Advertisements
– Knowledge Graph
• Perception of SERPs – Above the fold
– Below the fold
Changes in the results presentation
1. List-based results presentation – Well-established reading behaviour, from top to bottom
2. Universal Search – Still list-based, but additional elements – Results are not presented in the same way anymore; graphical elements
influence users results perception and their selection behaviour
3. Direct answers, factual information – List-based presentation has less influence – Results are not necessarily links to documents, but also direct answers (no need
to leave the search engine to get a result)
xxxx
• xxxx
(Granka et al. 2004)
xxxx
• xxxx
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• The aim of search engine optimization is to increase the visibility of certain documents in the Web search engines
• SEO has a positive and negative effect, as well • Focus of SEO changes from purely commercial to relevant informational content: – SEO for news
– SEO for NGOs, public relations, and government institutions
– Academic SEO
Case study: Vertical search
• Google Shopping – Index based on data feeds from merchants
– Since 2013, pay-for-inclusion model
• Results from a study on Google’s proposal in the E.U. competition investigation (2013) – Representative, click-based study in four countries (Germany, France, Italy, Spain)
– 1,000 respondents per country
Google Shopping results
Google Ads
Information icon with hover text
Information icon with hover text
Organic results
Clickable areas
Rival links
20
Lewandowski, D.; Sünkler, S.: Representative online study to evaluate the commitments proposed by Google as part of EU competition investigation AT.39740-Google - Report for Germany http://www.bui.haw-hamburg.de/fileadmin/user_upload/lewandowski/google-reports/Google_Online_Survey_DE.pdf
Total number of clicks: 1000 Number of clicks on shopping results and links to rival offerings: 642
Most of the clicks were on organic results and Google Shopping results (93%).
593 clicks (59.3%)
0 clicks (0%)
358 clicks (35.8%)
49 clicks (4.9%)
Logged clicks
23
Lewandowski, D.; Sünkler, S.: Representative online study to evaluate the commitments proposed by Google as part of EU competition investigation AT.39740-Google - Report for Germany http://www.bui.haw-hamburg.de/fileadmin/user_upload/lewandowski/google-reports/Google_Online_Survey_DE.pdf
Task 1: DSLR camera (desktop layout)
1
Germany France Spain Italy
Distribution of clicks (n = 1000 for each country)
Google Shopping Results
593 (59.3%) 667 (66.7%) 587 (58.7%) 632 (63.2%)
Organic Results 358 (35.8%) 279 (27.9%) 410 (41%) 289 (28.9%)
Rival Links 49 (4.9%) 54 (5.4%) 3 (0.3%) 79 (7.9%)
Lewandowski, D.; Sünkler, S.: Representative online study to evaluate the commitments proposed by Google as part of EU competition investigation AT.39740-Google - Report for Germany http://www.bui.haw-hamburg.de/fileadmin/user_upload/lewandowski/google-reports/Google_Online_Survey_DE.pdf
Total number of clicks: 1000 Number of clicks on shopping results and links to rival offerings: 620
Most of the clicks were on organic results and Google Shopping results (79.8%).
Google’s second proposal (version a)
418 clicks (41.8%)
380 clicks (38%)
202 clicks (20.2%)
0 clicks (0%)
Google’s second proposal (version b)
Total number of clicks: 1000 Number of clicks on shopping results and links to rival offerings: 589
Most of the clicks were on organic results and Google Shopping results (83.4%).
Google’s second proposal (version b)
423 clicks (42.3%)
411 clicks (41.1%)
166 clicks (16.6%)
0 clicks (0%)
http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2014/03/google-shopping-panel-nest1.jpg
Interplay between search engines and their users
• Problems arising from – Users not being aware of the possibilities search engines offer
– Users not knowing how search engines work
– Users not knowing about search engines’ business models
• Problems arising from the market dominance of one search engine – Influence of the results presentation
– Influence of search engine optimization
– Collection and tracking of user data
à On the one hand, we have to increase users’ information literacy. On the other hand, we need to increase diversity on the search market
3. Alternative search engines
The simple answer: There is no perfect search engine
• Web Indexing – New, changed, deleted document
– “Holy grail” of keeping the index complete and current
Risvik, K. M., & Michelsen, R. (2002). Search engines and web dynamics. Computer Networks, 39(3), 289–302.
Freshness of Web search engines (see Lewandowski, Wahlig & Meyer-Bautor, 2006; Lewandowski, 2008)
Why is one search engine not enough?
• No one search engine covers the whole of the Web – Index size and index freshness
– Integration of Facebook content in Bing; Google+ content in Google
• We need more than one search engine to ensure that a broad range of opinions are represented in the search market.
• Users should have the choice between different worldviews which originate as a product of algorithm-based search result generation
• Ideology-free search algorithms are simply not possible
Alternative Search Engines
• What constitutes an “alternative search engine”? – All search engines that are not Google (e.g., Bing)
– Meta-search engines (e.g., Dogpile, Metager)
– Search engines which explicitly position themselves as an alternative to Google through a regional approach (e.g., Seekport)
– New approaches to search / “Real alternatives”: Alternative approaches to gathering and representing web content
à Only a few noteworthy alternatives: mainly Bing, but some to watch à Yandex
à Duck Duck Go
Economic perspective
• Only the largest internet companies are able to afford large indexes. • Microsoft is the only company besides Google to possess a comprehensive
search engine index.
• Yahoo gave up on its own index several years ago
• It appears as though operating a dedicated index is attractive to practically no one — and there are hardly any candidates with the necessary financial resources in any case
Vision
• “An index of the web that can be accessed at fair conditions for everyone”
– “Everyone” means that anyone who is interested can access the index.
– “Fair conditions” does not mean that access to the index must be free of charge for everyone. A certain number of document requests per day should be available at no cost in order to promote non-profit projects.
– “Access” to the index can be defined as the ability to automatically query the index with ease.
– The concept “index of the web” is intended to cover as much of the web as possible
4. Conclusion
#1
The current market dominance of Google leads to only one of many possible views on the Web’s information.
#2
The market failed in establishing alternatives to Google.
#3
Results presentation heavily influences users’ perception of the results, and their selection behaviour, as well.
#4
An independent index of the Web would motivate companies, institutions, and developers to create their own search applications.
#5
An independent index of the Web would enable applications we are not yet capable of even imagining.
Thank you
Prof. Dr. Dirk Lewandowski Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften Hamburg dirk.lewandowski@haw-hamburg,de Twitter: Dirk_Lew http://www.searchstudies.org/dirk
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