"Steve Hayes" <hayesm
...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
...
> It seems that Altavista is much better than Google for genealogical
> searches.
> A distant cousin is organising a GROWDEN family reunion, and I have
> a GROWDEN
> family web page, and was trying to see what there was on the family
> on the
> web.
> I entered "Growden family Growdon" (both spellings are used) in both
> Google
> and Altavista (http://www.altavista.com) and Altavista returned far
> more
> relevant results on the first page. My page dedicated to Growden
> family
> history did not show up on the first couple of Google pages at all,
> but it was
> the first one on Altavista. It also appeared on the first page on
> Dogpile
> (http://www.dogpile.com).
> "Google is your friend" has become something of a cliche in
> genealogy
> newsgroups, but it is worth remembering that it is not the only
> search engine,
> and for genealogical purposes it is not even the best.
As one of those wont to say Google, and not about to change that, I'll
explain why.
It is nothing to do with whether Google is the best or not, and
nothing to do with whether any other search engine could be got and
installed, and would prove better. It is most definitely nothing to do
with sophisticated searchers who are familiar enough with searching to
make value judgements and sufficiently energetic to pursue those
judgements until they get the optimum search procedure for themselves.
What I am addressing is the reality. The vast majority of PCs in the
UK come with Google installed. They are sold to people who wouldn't
know, and aren't interested in knowing, what the alternatives could
be. People who clearly have not used any search engine before, which
is deducible from the fact that they asked a question which could be
answered in a fraction of a second if they had used the search engine
they already have installed and it is reachable through the same
keyboard as they just used to ask the question. People who don't seem
to have twigged that the core technology in genealogy is searching!
Such people will go on and on and on asking basic or stupid questions,
expecting help from those who have done their homework, and never
giving anything back to the readers of the newsgroup. It is no good
doing a specific look-up for them. They learn nothing, except where to
come back for the next freebie. They'll only ever become useful if
they learn the basics, starting with searching as their first response
to a problem. And the first place they can start learning about
searching is right there in front of them at their fingertips. Go and
Google.
It'll probably be a year or two, after they have learned fairly
sophisticated searching, that they get fed up with the irrelevant crap
and advertisements, and start wondering whether there is something
better. By that time they'll be sophisticated enough searchers to find
it. There will be a big fall out during that learning time because
many people will be unable to learn or decide that learning is not
worth the bother. That doesn't matter. Genealogy is not a compulsory
subject but an optional extra. If they can't or won't do the work then
they have every right to go an play tiddlywinks or any other time
filler which does not involve searching.
Don
