How to Use a Search Engine

3rd March 2007

Someone just sent me an email about a search engine article I wrote in 1998. It was a short article where I tried to explain what a search engine was, and how to use one. Funny enough, their question was similar to the one that sparked the original article.

Like most of my articles back then, it started as an email response to a customer question. This one happened to be from someone trying to find something using a search engine, and todays question was about being FOUND, on the engines. Still, the answers were remarkably similar.

In the article, I say this -

In May of 1994, my wife and I decided to buy a house. Being semi-savvy on the computer, I thought I would try to search the Web for listings. I went to my preferred search engine site, and typed in “houses sale Portland Oregon.” I got back only three matches. Today, that same query, on that same search engine, gets exactly 60,681 matches.

Today, that same search phrase brings up 1,290,00 results. Uh-oh… looks like growth is slowing way down! In my first 4 years online, there was a growth factor of over 20,000 times. In the subsequent 4 years, going from 60,000 to 1.2 million, it only grew only 20 times.

In the article, I explained that to find what you wanted as a customer, you just had to tell the search engines exactly what you want. Today, I tell people that to be found by your customers, you just have to give them exactly what they’re looking for.

What will i do for a living once everyone finally figures it out?

The original article is still here, if you want a taste of search nostalgia…