In the same way that when people vacuum-clean their houses they say they are 'hoovering' it, people nowadays say they are 'googling' it when they are searching for information on the internet. By far and away the most popular search engine is, of course, Google. Until very recently, my perception was that all human knowledge (well, a fairly large proportion of it) was available to find on Google's search engine. Therefore, if you want to do some research into, say, patents on a product your business is looking to develop, then you start and finish with Google.
Far more than just searching for information on websites around the world through Google, the search giant is now scanning books so that you can search across thousands of out of copyright titles for the information you are looking for. This action in itself has created a large and heated debate in the publishing world as publishers and authors worry about their intellectual property and whether this is being abused. But that's another discussion.
So, one might assume that carrying out market research, say, in the 21st century that you can rely on search engines to find what you need. You make the assumption that everything you are looking for is properly indexed and categorised. One might also assume that because what you searched for in Google appears at the top of the search results that that result is the most authoritative and well respected piece of information on the subject.
The reality is that serious researchers don't rely on Google or other search engines to do their research. Much of the information is not indexed, categorised and reviewed by peers in enough detail for researchers to rely upon it to make decisions about whether to invest millions of pounds or dollars into a new product development.
Academic and corporate researchers use academic and corporate research libraries which, in turn, invest many thousands of pounds in information which is aggregated, indexed, categorised and tagged by hand and in detail, so that researchers can rely on the information to make the right decisions.
So, there is a big difference between search and research and people expect to have the same simple interface to find the information they need. It's just that you need to trust the quality of the information you find which is not always the case when much of the results at the top of research results might well be there because someone has spent a huge amount of time optimising the content to be at the top. It might not be the best content, however.
So, if you want to do some serious research, don't just rely on search.
Far more than just searching for information on websites around the world through Google, the search giant is now scanning books so that you can search across thousands of out of copyright titles for the information you are looking for. This action in itself has created a large and heated debate in the publishing world as publishers and authors worry about their intellectual property and whether this is being abused. But that's another discussion.
So, one might assume that carrying out market research, say, in the 21st century that you can rely on search engines to find what you need. You make the assumption that everything you are looking for is properly indexed and categorised. One might also assume that because what you searched for in Google appears at the top of the search results that that result is the most authoritative and well respected piece of information on the subject.
The reality is that serious researchers don't rely on Google or other search engines to do their research. Much of the information is not indexed, categorised and reviewed by peers in enough detail for researchers to rely upon it to make decisions about whether to invest millions of pounds or dollars into a new product development.
Academic and corporate researchers use academic and corporate research libraries which, in turn, invest many thousands of pounds in information which is aggregated, indexed, categorised and tagged by hand and in detail, so that researchers can rely on the information to make the right decisions.
So, there is a big difference between search and research and people expect to have the same simple interface to find the information they need. It's just that you need to trust the quality of the information you find which is not always the case when much of the results at the top of research results might well be there because someone has spent a huge amount of time optimising the content to be at the top. It might not be the best content, however.
So, if you want to do some serious research, don't just rely on search.
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