Information Overload? - Are Search Engines Really the 21st Century Guru?

Information Overload? - Are Search Engines Really the 21st Century Guru?

In order to assist our business and employment we all need to make informed judgments. The Internet is playing an important roll in this regard, and will probably do so more and more in the future. Better knowing what the search engines are in fact doing for us, helps us to make better decisions based upon what they have provided us with.

Wikipedia makes reference to :-

"Testing the guru Some scriptures and gurus have warned against false teachers, and have recommended that the spiritual seeker test the guru before accepting him. Some have given criteria on how to distinguish false from genuine ones..."

So, in order to attempt to answer the question, Are Search Engines really the 21st Century Guru? - I have looked at whether the search engines have the information at their disposal, whether 'what they know' can be relied upon as being accurate, and whether that information is 'communicated to us' in a way that we understand.

- We've all gone to our favourite search engine for some information and have been presented with 29,800,000 search results! (or more) Putting aside what the Search Engine 'boffins' think us mortals are supposed to do with all that information in just one life time, there can be little doubt that more or less whatever you want to know, or need to know, is now available on line.

- How accurate this information is, has to depend upon the source of the information - simply thinking that a search result in the top 10 of 29,800,000 results must be reliable may be a starting point in establishing the reliability, but is not in itself sufficient. Just because someone says they are an expert, does not mean they are, or that they are right. You have to apply your own judgement on whether the information is reliable. So for this test criteria I have to say that the information available can not be relied upon, as it has to first be authenticated by the person seeking that information, and we are not always in a position to make that judgment call.

- Whether the information is 'communicated' in a way we can understand, will vary from person to person. Today there are so many ways the internet can give us information - images - video - person to person contact by voice and messengers etc, the information on the net ought to be available in a form that suites almost every one. However, the search engines deliver the results in a form that is mainly text based, and in a form that requires you to click on a chosen result before you know what it is that you are going to be looking at. I find the way search engines 'communicate' their search results to be poor.

In conclusion the huge amounts of information accessible via the search engines certainly elevates them to guru status, but as to its reliability and in the way that this information is 'communicated to us' I find that, at the moment anyway, they are falling a long way short.

Yes search engines have an important and valuable role to play in seeking reliable information that can be properly understood, but other options both 'hand in glove' with the search engines, and independent of them need, have a valuable role to play.

Next week I'll be looking at how to use the search engines to reveal some of these other resources from search results that are unlikely to be seen, without a lifetime of trolling through an insane number of said search results.

[http://www.information-guru.com] Always something of Interest - and its kept FRESH.

Graham Harris

g.harris@information-guru.com

Bio:- Working with computers since 1974! Current - Webmaster of [http://www.information-guru.com] - Dell Certified Systems Expert Recent - Data centre Engineer - Internet Engineer

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Graham_A_Harris/163977

_(By Graham A Harris).