Google's Web Search

Introduction

Prior to the birth of the internet, society accessed information through printed sources which was a laborious and time consuming process. Due to advanced technology, researchers use search engines through the World Wide Web to gather thousands of information in matter of seconds. In the United States, Americans use Google for two-thirds of their Web searches which allowed Google Search to be the dominant Web search engine (Miller, 2011). Overall, Google’s Web Search will be used continually to access information by today’s generation as well as the future’s.

Background

Search engines are server program with a system with two elements: the indexer which gathers the words from the documents and puts those words into an index file for fast retrieval and the search engine itself locates the relevant pages in the index (Rappoport, 2000).

As usual, search engines was a great innovation and was nothing more than a concept of hypertext and memory extension introduced in 1945. Through technological advancements and innovators such as Gerard Salton, father of modern search technology, search engines were developed. (History of Search Engines: From 1945 to Google Today). Finally, by 1997 Google was created. It was the product of Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who met at Stanford University where they discovered a formula to rank the order of random search results by relevancy. By 1999 Google was launched with investments that added up to $30 million dollars (Google Inc).

Potential Benefits

Google’s Search is very beneficial for the users in numerous ways: it promotes globalization, is novice-friendly, available on many devices and much more. First of all, the search engine is revolution in globalization because it allows universal access to information for the users, hence the goal of the founders of Google. In addition, the search engine has a machine translation between any language in the world (Karen Cho). Next, novice users end Google’s Search with satisfying experiences mainly because of understandable functionalities that Google provides. Google has numerous tools and guides available, such as “Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide,” a thirty page long portable document format (Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide). Finally, the search engine provided by Google is not only accessed through a computer, but it also available through mobile devices. Since mobile devices are with users all the time unlike a personal computer, the users have the capability to search anything at all times.

Legal and Ethical Issues

As Google’s search engine became universally known the fame and power also came with problems. Few issues that Google encountered were privacy and  adult content. At first, Google was a pure search engine and ever since the company focused on the profit of advertisements, Google had consolidated its Privacy Policy. Its approach was to collect data from the users’ searches and location or contacts from mobile devices. This change in privacy raised skepticism and concerns on Google’s stance on privacy, as well as the protection of personal data (Top search engine Google to track users like never before). Since Google’s Web Search is available to all ages, there would be concerns of minors accessing information particular to adult content. For instance, the latest analysis from Hitwise states that search engines have overtaken adult websites in share of UK internet visits and that UK searches are powered by Google. Heather Hopkins, Vice President of Research for Hitwise UK said, "Search engines overtook adult websites in October and the lead has been growing ever since,” and "This marks an important point in the maturity of the internet, with mainstream consumer activities overtaking the early attractions of the internet. It indicates that search engines have become the point of entry for the web, used to navigate to specific websites and to search for products and information." (Hitwise). Overall, the search results on adult content have been increasing which clearly.

Further Required Research

Google’s Web Search has a variety of categories to search for. A variety of search features include from: everything, images, maps, videos, news, shopping, translations, and scholars. The type of search most used would be text searches, or searches for everything. Searches based on images would show results only through visuals. Next, Google’s maps are between the world atlas, road maps, and even geographical features on Google Earth. The road map has a function where it could provide directions from one location to another, in addition, calculate the distance and time for the destinations. In terms of video, before Google bought Youtube, the quality and content of videos was not impressive. However, after the purchase of Youtube, Google known as the world’s search engine evolved to not only the world’s search engine, but also the world’s main video website. For the news, Google’s search engine is set to the most up-to-date and popular stories and events. It contains categories and top stories world-wide. Google’s search even has a translation between any language in the world, as well as an language auto detecting feature. Most of all, Google’s most recent addition is Google Scholars. Google Scholars allows users to find academic contents such “theses, books, abstracts, and technical reports from broad areas of research” (Ahmed, 2012).

Conclusion

            Overall, Google’s Web Search is a highly ranked search engine that is dominant today in the World Wide Web. Its benefits of finding relevant information for the users quickly and painlessly, globalization, and availability has helped the search engine to be more recognized by society. Although it may pose an ethical issue regarding to privacy and its easy access to mature content for minors, the Web search still stands to be efficient and credible.

Reference

Anonymous, . Top search engine Google to track users like never

before. (2012, January 28). The Arab American News,p. 18.  Retrieved February 27, 2012, from Ethnic NewsWatch (ENW). (Document ID: 2587033981).

This article was concerned of Google’s new privacy policy, how it will be saving personal data of the users.

Avi Rappoport.  (2000, October). Search engines: The hunt is on. Network Computing, 11(20), 48-54.  Retrieved February 22, 2012, from ABI/INFORM Global. (Document ID: 62725694).

This source explained about the element of a source engine and its functionality.

Claire Cain Miller.  (2011, November 4). Google Tries To Improve Timeliness Of Searches :[Business/Financial Desk]. New York Times  (Late Edition (east Coast)),  p. B.1.  Retrieved February 24, 2012, from Banking Information Source. (Document ID: 2502186651).

        This article talks about the improvement of Google’s search engine and the fact that 2/3 of Americans use Google’s Search.

Hitwise: Search engines overtake adult sites in share ofUK visits. (22  February). M2 Presswire,1.  Retrieved February 27, 2012, from ProQuest Computing. (Document ID: 1220560721).

        This article states facts based on search engines the source for adult web content in United Kingdom, with Google one of the top contributors.

Mueen Ahmed, K.. (2012). Assessing citations with Google Scholar: A new feature. Journal of Pharmacology and Pharmacotherapeutics, 3(1), 75-76.  Retrieved February 28, 2012, from Research Library. (Document ID: 2585682511).

        This source states the new feature developed by Google, Google Scholars.

Google Inc. (15  February). Hoover's Company Records,59101.  Retrieved February 23, 2012, from Hoover's Company Records. (Document ID: 995427241).

        This source had information more specific about Google Inc. in terms of history and finance.

History of Search Engines: From 1945 to Google Today. (n.d.). Retrieved January/February 24, 2012, from Aaron Wall website: http://www.searchenginehistory.com/#before

        This website had information based on search engines in general. Most of all, had the history of the development in search engines.

Karen Cho.  (1  January). Powering the Google engine: innovation is key. INSEAD            Articles.  Retrieved February 25, 2012, from ABI/INFORM Global. (Document            ID: 2036692931).

            This article explained how Google’s Search is novice-friendly and is a universal tool.

Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide [Portable Document Format]. (n.d.). Retrieved          February 26, 2012, from Google Inc. website     http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/               untrusted_dlcp/www.google.com/en/us/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization  starter-guide.pdf 

            This portable document format provided by Google was a guide for the search engine.