Over the past 20 years, search engines have evolved dramatically, and online search has evolved from something useless and barely lets you find specific web pages, to being the ultimate means of knowledge and discovery, where you can now get accurate information or answers about any topic, find the specific product you're looking for, or find out more about a topic very quickly.
This makes us wonder: how does online search evolve in this way, what it will look like in the future, and more importantly how it can change our interaction with technology in general?
First: How online search has evolved:
Google Search is the leading candidate in the world of search engines, becoming the dominant internet search from the moment it enters the scene, and today it retains a share of more than 92% of all internet searches, in addition to continuing to set standards for how other search engines work.
It's important to remember that Google, now owned by Alphabet, is a for-profit company, and its main source of revenue is advertising, and then when people click on ads that accompany searches, the companies that put these ads pay google money.
Accordingly, to deliver the best ads and attract as many money-generating users as possible, Google is giving users the best possible experience through its search engine, which aims to achieve several sub-goals, including:
Provide more relevant results:
Google Search has long been the first choice for most users due to its ability to evoke relevant results and, in other words, provide users with content that matches their queries, as search algorithms have evolved over time and now offer you smarter and more quality search results.
Deliver more reliable results:
Google's search engine has evolved to deliver more reliable results, this does not mean that just matching a particular topic with a user's query is trustworthy or that it will be satisfactory to the end user, as the web is filled with unwanted content and highly low-quality content.
So part of Google's search engine's mission is to filter this content, so over the years the search engine has developed standards for filtering content in high quality, where it is able to detect unwanted links, abusive phrases, and other tags that secrete good sites for low quality.
Provide a simple and fast user interface:
Google has developed its own search engine to provide users with a simple and fast interface, where you can now get results almost instantly, even if you're looking for a complex phrase, and you can search using different methods, such as voice search.
Provide direct information and answers:
Google has also tried to simplify and speed up the search process by providing users with direct information instead of just directing them to a website that may or may not have an answer, for example: if you are looking for a relatively simple question, such as: the launch date of a phone from Samsung you will get an immediate answer in the screen without having to press any search result, this not only makes the user experience simpler and more enjoyable, but also keeps the user in the search site for a longer period of time, increasing the likelihood of clicking on an ad.
What will search engines look like in the future?
Given all the developments that search engines have seen in recent times, it's likely that we'll see new ways to interact with search engines, so instead of just writing a query or using our voices, we'll have a variety of new interaction patterns, including:
Use new devices:
We'll see that search will become more integrated with a wide range of devices, as in addition to the devices we now use in search, such as computers, smartphones, tablets and speakers, in the future, Internet of Things devices may offer us newer and more creative styles when searching.
Talks:
Voice search is already a tremendous advance, so what if we can search in a more interactive way, such as: search through conversation, where you can give us more customization options and give us more relevant results than ever before.
Gestures:
In the future, you may be able to search with simple gestures, which is a faster and easier way of voice search, so using the right device and user-available settings, gestures can be used, such as: pointing to search and browse the results.
Search through ideas:
Although this technology may be customized for the distant future, the AI interface, such as Neuralink, may make it possible to search using only your ideas.
Customization and forecasting:
Many experts call Google a data company, where its advertising network relies heavily on its ability to provide advertisers with useful data about their advertising goals, and in addition, search results already rely heavily on user data.
So your previously saved data, previous search record as well as the way you interact online can shape your search results, so with big data and artificial intelligence Google and other search engines may be able to actively anticipate searches before they are executed, providing you with the results you think you need before you really need them.
Summary: .
While Google continues to dominate internet search engines, other competitors are growing slowly, such as Microsoft's Bing, or DuckDuckGo, which has become a popular choice for privacy-conscious users, as well as a new group of search engine startups positioning itself as a potential competitor to Google.
And then in the years to come, if a new player or current competitor finds a way to move Google from the top, it may be because it offers a completely different experience that is hard to imagine, given what Google is currently offering.
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