Do you realize that even the biggest search engines, Google, Yahoo, Lycos, Alta Vista each probably only lists a fraction of the pages which are actually out there on the net? Contrary to popular belief most search engines do not go looking for web sites to list. Sites must be submitted to search engines to have any chance of appearing in the listings. Kirwood offers a superb, highly professional Search Engine Submission program.

To make matters worse, many of the major search engines appear to have sold out to advertisers. Search results are corrupted by phony returns emphasing pre-sold keywords and results which often dishonestly place paid advertisers at the top of search results regardless of their connection to the original search query.

Search engines are in business and have every right to make money and do as they want. Consumers also have every right to drop rigged search engines like hot potatos and find a source they can trust. That isn't so easy.

On top ot the ethical questions, there does not appear to be any editing or control over what search engines list. The listing process has not apparent relationship to context and meaning, only to individual words. No wonder so many people find so many searches useless.

A large percentage of the pages returned in search engines results no longer exist. A large number are duplicates of the same sites. And of the balance, a huge percent are simply out of date.

There are probably over a billion pages on the net. Most search engines just seem to throw them on the pile. The result is that we get thousands of useless hits on a search. If the search engines do not improve this, someone will and that will blow the current crop of search engines out of existence, which is where several belong right now.

The search engine industry is new, evolving and has many problems. However, it still beats spending a few hundred hours in a library looking for information the hard way.