Search Engines

I know how search engines work pretty well and have an appreciation for the problems inherent in them based on their design. I think I am a little more fascinated by the creative ways these software engines draw revenue for the companies that own them. One way of generating revenue is by using “search term bidding” where a search engine company “sells” by via automated auction the placement of a customer’s website on its returned search webform. The idea being the higher on the list a company’s website is returned the more customer “click-throughs” it will receive.

We had an interesting class activity yesterday where we role-played being a search term bidder. The rules were a little vague and there was a lot of confusion about the point of the exercise. It seemed to me that people would bid until they had no more money which would guarantee that the person with the highest amount of available money would always win. The run through of the process with the class proved this out, maybe because we weren’t using real money?? And several people over bid their budget too. Anyway, I found an article that explains search term bidding rather well and clears up (for me anyway), the point of what we were trying to replicate in class: http://www.payperclicksearchengines.com/pay-per-click-search-engine-bidding.shtml

Understanding the internet and WWW

The “internet” is the physical hardware of the masses of computers linked together to enable information interchange. The "Web" is the content that is on these machines and is passed along via "packets" using whatever software protocol is enabled that allows these computers to "talk" with each other.

I thought Monday's class was rather interesting and we received a very brief overview of the internet and web. Just touching the "tip-o-the-iceberg" though... The internet/web has to be classified as a modern marvel I think; considering the information interchange between machines that are not only dissimilar, but using different program languages, in different countries, and using "agreed upon" protocols to pass along their info. It is staggering to me the global coordination that had to occur to enable the modern internet, especially considering it is a mechanism that basically "evolved" and wasn't really engineered in the form we now know it. Most people who use the internet have no idea what magic is going on behind the curtain that allows them to send emails or instant messaging. What a very cool innovation.

www.archive.org

Having previous versions of websites available to the world is an interesting idea, and one that I didn't know existed until now. I played with the “wayback” utility a little bit and found it to be quite interesting. The ability to go and see past content of websites strikes me as being very cool, and at the same time a little disconcerting.

The greatest use of this tool I see is by lawyers litigating copyright infringements or other web content change type problems. Since most professional web engineers make sure the look and feel of their web content is ready before publishing, I don’t think there is an issue of embarrassment related to previous versions of their sites. But for websites that have hosted “online music sharing” or other such file swapping that was common in the past and “found” later to be not acceptable by our cherished legal profession in their relentless search for ways to litigate for cash (otherwise known as legalized extortion), past websites can come back to haunt content owners (even if corrected) when the new rules were passed.