Less and less people are lost in the labyrinth of the Internet.

2001/09/16 Mendiburu, Joana - Elhuyar Zientziaren Komunikazioa

• Internet

The Internet has been sold as a tool that would revolutionize the world of information. There is a lot and everything, but it seems that this information has become a maze more than attractive. Missing out on excessive information is very easy and sometimes it can be boring or desperate that hours and hours are looking for information.

Consequently, even though there are more and more web pages, a new research claims that Internet users have been tired of being lost in the pages. People know pages that fit their ideas or that will satisfy their interests and will not waste time, as at first, in the search for news. The user complements the list of favorite sites and ready! In addition, this list is increasingly reduced. According to data from the company measuring Media Metriz's cyber traffic, last year US Internet users had an average of 20 favorite pages. In one year the list of favorite pages has been reduced by half. In addition, it seems that the official media have shown a great speed of adaptation to the network and have no problem getting people. What looked like an alternative for small media outlets has been frustrated. Thus, although more and more time has passed on the Internet, people have not shown long-term curiosity about finding new things.

On the other hand, what should be an unbeatable tool to create a more open society has been assumed by day to day and is mainly used for everyday things. For example, know the train schedule, buy a disc, buy tickets for a performance...

Damaged by the search engine

Separating what is valuable from excessive information is not a simple work.

With all these changes, of course, the search engines have been damaged. Its use has decreased dramatically and, in addition, a San Francisco congress has released news that questions the reliability of search engines. It seems that the posts of the listings that appear in the search engines are bought. Why? As is normal, the data subject does not enter hundreds of pages related to this search. The normal thing is that we enter the first twenty pages, and the rest!

It has taken little to realize the importance of being in the first positions of the seeker. And, of course, the seekers wanted to take this opportunity to raise some more money in addition to what they get with the usual propaganda media.

The Internet is an unregulated world.

Some search engines, like the GoTo search engine, clearly say what each web page has paid to be in the top positions on the list. Meanwhile, Lycos and Google search engines distribute pages in strips and create lists of protected pages or lists of priority pages. In other search engines, it is still not clear whether the pages that appear in the first posts of the search are pages of great interest or have paid.

However, in the words of Danny Sullivan, organizer of the congress, "while the person who seeks is not able to differentiate paid pages from unpaid lists, the time has not come to give the alarm." However, "it would be nice if the seekers distinguished between the paid with a symbol and the unpaid". Consumer associations also defend this idea.

But computer science is not an immobile world, and when something new happens people are willing to respond. In this case, many experts have appeared able to put hand in the search engine listings. In fact, to form lists and identify places of interest, certain content, attractive phrases or keywords are taken into account. But page designers know all the tricks and "artificially" are able to put their page in first position.

As a result, full control of lists is not easy and Google, FAST, AltaVista and the rest of search engines are trying to make controls more and more stringent. In addition, search engines, who long ago realized this trick, try to disrupt pages that are not by their merits in the top positions on the list.

Google, for example, has made several times a threat saying it will remove from its list pages that have wanted to be artificially in the top positions. Designer Shari Thurow argues that the best way for search engines to properly perform their work and regain confidence would be to create attractive and interesting websites.

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