Are you at all shocked that when you do a Google search you’re getting to about one-tenth of all online information?
You should be. You may have heard someone say, “I can get anything I need on the web from Google.” You may even have said it yourself. It’s hogwash.
Studies show 9 out of 10 people think they’re getting what they need from their Internet searches. That means your employees, your executives and even your board of directors.
There have been many studies about our searching skills, but one of the most famous is the Pew Internet and American Life Project’s “Search Engine Users,” which is sub-titled “Internet searchers are confident, satisfied and trusting – but they are also unaware and naïve.”
So now, if you haven’t heard of the “Deep Web,” “Invisible Web” or “Hidden Internet” it’s time to stop reading this article right now and search these terms on your own. (Then, come back please!)
OK, I’m glad you’re back.
Did you find out in a few seconds of searching that you might be, um… shockingly out of touch?
Follow-up Question, Please
Here’s a follow-up question. When you searched for these terms, did any of you search somewhere other than the web? How many of you did your search in the “News” area of Google (or Yahoo or Ask.com)?
If you did, you found things like this article about Google’s “Deep Web” search initiative – “Google: “We’re Not Doing a Good Job with Structured Data.”
How many of you searched “Video” or “Blogs?” Did any of you search Twitter or the Questions section of LinkedIn?
Through Twitter you might have made your way to this: “Google’s PDF Search Throws Some Light on the Dark Web.” It’s about increasing the effectiveness of PDF search. Wow!
And, that’s only the beginning. We could go on – and on.
The Cost
Not knowing how to target your searches is costing you and your company time and money every day.
If you’re missing most of what a search engine can help you find, you are lost. If you don’t know that search engines (even the best of them) can get to only a fraction what’s on the web, you’re seeing the world of information about as clearly as the photo you see above.
We call search effectiveness “the language of the 21st Century.” It’s the language of search skills and strategies that ensure you target just the right information quickly and effectively.
More importantly, these skills keep you from being sucked in by the hawkers and swindlers.
Time to start learning this new language, don’t you think? That way, you’ll see the world of information clearly – like this:
4 comments ↓
I’ve read articles where the size of the “free” Web is estimated at 500 billion web pages, which would include pages and documents behind registration. I’ve read articles where this is much smaller. And Google claims to have indexed 1 trillion unique URLs, so maybe it’s a lot bigger. There is a cool site that does track the number of Web pages each major search engine indexes. It’s at: http://www.worldwidewebsize.com/ If you trust the numbers, Yahoo is the largest search engine by far at about 65 billion indexed pages. Google is at around 17 billion. So if you believe the numbers, Google has actually indexed about 5% of the Web pages, and if you were to take all search engines combined, it’s around 15 – 20%. Regardless, great post as usual, and you’re right on…most of the “free and open” Web is still invisible (and let’s be honest, everything after the first couple of pages on Google are “invisible” because no one ever looks at it).
Thanks Sam,
You always have some of the greatest sites and ideas. As the former President of the James J. Hill Business Reference Library you kinda’ know what you’re talking about. Just the largest business reference library in the U.S.
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