On October 31, 2011, Jason Hiner explored a fundamental question about Google and how it conducts its business:

Can Google survive its blind faith in the algorithm?

Jason clearly explains how Google’s search algorithms, which have served them so well in the past, could now doom the company’s future success because the algorithms are failing. Jason sums it up this way:

As huge as social media is, the even bigger challenge for Google has been the declining potency of its search engine. In recent years, Google searches have become a lot less useful and a lot more frustrating. It has become more difficult to find stuff that you know is out there – even stuff that you’ve searched for (and found) previously.

Jason’s analysis is supported by the results of a poll I took in July 2011, which asked a specific question:

Do you trust that Google gives you the best search results?

Take a look at the pie chart and note that only 22% said yes that that question. The other 78% do not trust the results either because the algorithm failed (55%) or because someone purchased better search result placement (23%).

That’s a very large amount of dissatisfaction with Google search results, which is still the flagship product of the company.

Inquiry

If we don’t trust Google search results, why do we still depend on it so often? Do you think Google realizes the lack of trust their search results are generating and the destructive nature that lack of trust will have on their brand?

Is there a viable alternative to Google search?