Software That’s Good Enough That You Forget You’re Using It: No.1 The Google Search Engine

Google search was originally developed by Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1997. It iquickly established itself as the most used search engine on the World Wide Web, and these days is used more than all the others put together. Before Google was developed, many search engines that were once more popular than Google, used keyword-based methods of ranking search results that would rank pages by how often the search terms occurred in the page, or how strongly associated the search terms were within each resulting page. Google's search engine uses a patented system called PageRank to help rank web pages that match a given search string. The resulting ranking derives from human-generated links, and is thought to represent well the importance that human beings place on the page.

The consequence of the system that Google uses to find web pages is that it is quite simply better at finding information than any other tool. This is only part of the story. The process is actually quite complex, but it hides all this away from the user. The result is an interface which is positively minimalist. Over the years, as Google have sought new ways to make money from their invention, it has become rather more cluttered, but it is still a pretty simple interface.

People no longer search for information they “Google” for it. Only PowerPoint in my list of top ten applications has achieved the same level of recognition in common speech. Firefox has achieved only 20% market penetration, Google has at least 65% and still rising.

But the overriding reason for Google topping this list is the sheer power it offers the user to find information whilst hiding away almost the complexity. It is infinitely more powerful than non-computerized search techniques whilst being simpler to use.

As with any computer application, Google is only as the data to which it has access. Thus, it may be very effective at finding lots of content, but it cannot control the quality of that content. The second limitation is its secrecy over its search algorithms. This can be perceived as a problem by some users, eg academic users of the Scholar variant, since they would expect to be able to reproduce and validate the results. This will be regarded by some as a lack of transparency, but in the terms of this list, transparency is not about insight into the inner workings of the application, but about not putting barriers in the way of users. This is why the sheer power of the Google search engine has won over many, even in the academic community.

Google has changed our ability to find information on an ever growing Internet for ever. It represented a step change in our ability to search. It has done so with an application of staggering simplicity. Finally, it is appropriate that not only is the application transparent in use, but its purpose is to make a vast amount of information more transparent to the user.