While during the past few years Google has been the number one search engine, recently, numerous individuals and companies have been looking to change the current search system to develop something more innovative and profitable. One individual who has become fed up with Google’s continuous success is Rich Skrenta. As discussed in the article “Planning the New Google,” Skrenta believes that Google’s techniques are out of date and that it is time for a new search engine to take its place. Skrenta is currently in the process of developing a new search site known as ‘Blekko,’ which he has yet to reveal much about.

What is it about Google that Skrenta so strongly contests? Clearly millions of internet viewers constantly use Google on a daily basis and are quite content with their results. I even used Google to find articles and information to write this blog, clearly indicating my satisfaction and commitment to the site. Nevertheless, Google’s main downfall is its once revolutionary, yet currently outdated search technique: page rank. As discussed in class and in the Networks book draft, page rank is a ‘type of “fluid” that circulates throughout a network and is passed from node to node across edges and is eventually pooled at the most important nodes’ (Networks 144). Google uses the scaled page rank update rule to rank the various web pages it lists in a search. The update rule scales down each page rank by a common factor s, in order to prevent the ‘wrong’ nodes from having all the page rank (as is the case when a leak develops in the network). It is this technique which first enabled Google to stand out from all the other search engines, but it is also what has made Skrenta strive to improve internet search engines. Prior to Google, most search engines focused on keywords where they would note how often specific words appeared on specific sites, and those with the highest matching would be listed first. However, this search system was not very efficient. Google decided to change this system and look for links between sites and the origin of these links (the sites which have better incoming links appear higher up on search). While page rank certainly was once quite ground-breaking, Skrenta believes that it has ruined the quality of web searches. New secretive trade links have developed which attempt to increase the number of incoming links rewarded to a website (and therefore increasing its rank on a web search). Links used to demonstrate the value of a site, but since the growth of page rank, web sites have become too focused on discovering ways in which to undermine Google’s ranking system, causing page rank to lose much of its meaning.

Thus Skrenta and others are beginning to develop new ways to enhance the search system. Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia has recently created wikia search, which strives to improve the relevancy and precision of the search experience through creating a more human-mediated search engine. Mahalo is yet another example of a human search technique (this site pays those who specialize in specific fields to write reviews about their areas of expertise). It organizes the best links and strives to avoid scam sites, all in order to save searchers time during their searches.

While these new sites strive to add the human sense of judgment to search engines, computer algorithms that can unite the computer’s efficiency with a human’s shrewdness regarding page quality are the new frontier for search engines. While little is known about Blekko, it may end up accomplishing this specific goal. Nevertheless, Google has won over most consumers, and it may be rather difficult to convince so many that a new search engine is better than the one they are already so comfortable with. The future of search engines is on the verge and it is rather interesting to see what is yet to come with Google and its competitors.