Similar to that strange guy at the party using an acoustic guitar along with the Pink Floyd shirt, Google is becoming DEEP. Some would say...uncomfortably Deep Web. After an already busy year, wherein Google released an open source mobile OS and a browser that's rapidly gaining market-share, they recently announced they had mapped the sea floor, including the Mariana Trench. And hey, why don't you discovered a school featuring a number of the best scientific minds out there and see what the results are?
Therefore Google's been more visible than ever recently, and there is no doubt this'll carry on as they get their own hands into an increasing number of jobs - but let us drop down a couple of floors and look at something that should dramatically influence the way Google's indexing programs ("spiders" or "crawlers") gather data, assess websites and present the results. As much work as the BEM Interactive search engine marketing group puts into making websites appeal to spiders (and there is a lot we are able to do to get those spiders like it), the spider programs themselves are quite straightforward: hit a website's page index, browse the structure and content, and compare that to what Google has established to be "important" or "popular."
But as a result of the way these applications are created, there are certain areas they simply can't reach...namely pages that require human information, input, or actions. As a fundamental example, there is generally a confirmation page after a user submits a "Contact Us" or "Newsletter Sign-up" form - this could include a coupon code another sort of special information. This dynamically generated content (this could still be a search engine results page, calculations or conversions, even the outcomes of a symptom tool on a health site) only does not exist until the user creates it! Conditioned upon the form you filled out, the subsequent page is yours and yours alone - so attempt to ignore that tingle of omnipotence next time you Google something.
But search engine spiders cannot understand what the type is seeking or the information being delivered to the user - And even if they could, how would they figure out what to insert in order to create any useful content? Dropdown boxes, category selection, zip code input - one of these types can prevent data from being indexed. Collectively, this blocked data is called the "Deep Web." By some estimates, the Deep Web contains an astounding amount of information - several orders of magnitude more than that which is now searchable.
That is certainly cool... Geek. But, what does it mean?
Everyone knows Google loves relevance - their whole business model is made upon it. This technology is all about pulling just what the user is trying to find and immediately supplying it before requiring them to see any page outside the Google results page! Spooky.
Say that you're feeling under the current weather. Rather than type in "symptom checker" and locate a WebMD-type page, you type "coughing, runny nose, unexpected bubonic plaguelike swelling" right in the search engine. Google - that has already had their spiders reach every medical symptom form out there, query them in infinite varieties and mixtures, and establish the relevance & reputation of the results - instantly comes back with "You have got the Black Death" and you're set (or...perhaps not).
From a retailing viewpoint, many websites have functions to generate item lists based on user input. As it stands now, a shopper searching for a red, American made minivan with under 30K miles would find the appropriate website, input his or her criteria, whereupon the web site would query the database and return the results. If Google continues to go ahead with their deep internet crawls, this info may be displayed directly through their factory outlet of choice minus the user ever accessing any site other than Google (if the user makes a purchase, does Google get a piece? Hmm.... Home Page)
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