Goals
The ideal search engine ...
- Would easily account for and respond to the level of specifics which the user is looking for.
- Would respond in a useful manner to questions or statements such as "What is x?" or "I want to know x."
- Indicate confidence level or some other gauge for any specific page in any specific search.
[edit] Elaboration
- Specificity -- When people search, sometimes they are just browsing, and sometimes they want to know something specific. For example, today I was looking for information about cheap motels in or near a certain town. I could find lists of hotels, but that was too broad. I could find the rates for certain dates, but that was too specific.
- Language for queries -- Ideally, I could have just typed in "Which hotels within 15 miles of Anytown cost less than $75 a night?"
- Confidence level -- For example, maybe out of the first 10 hits, the first is rated at 90 percent, the next three are at 70 percent, and the rest are below 40 percent.