Web Dragons: inside the myth of search engines

A recent Forrester Research survey found more users had used a search engine in the last four weeks than had used email, making web search the Internet's new killer application. And while we know nothing about search engine technology of the particular flavor of engine we use, we nevertheless count on the authority and trustworthiness of the information we receive. In fact, we are so trusting of it that we use the web to build our own knowledge structure--and we do it in public, too, rather than in the privacy of our own library. In the meantime we are witnessing a radical convergence of online and print information, and of commercial and non-commercial sources, as new online distribution initiatives are begun every day. This book introduces the changing ways in which we locate information on the Web, and how what is presented to us as a result of our search is determined. It is critical, in part, in its presentation of the problems of web spam and of the current centralized approach to web searching--and presents solutions that give power to users rather than the advertisers and the search engines.