When
Google declared that its mission is to "organize the world's information," it didn't take into account that its very existence would dramatically increase the amount of information in the world and make it harder for us to find what we need online.
This became evident to me recently when I tried to find the phone number of a doctor. That's the sort of task for which Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) should be a godsend--an instant 411 service that gives you the simple information you need literally faster than if you picked up the phone and dialed directory assistance (or what's left of it).
But instead of getting the simple vanilla address and phone number I was looking for, my screen results were crowded with Web businesses of dubious utility, offering to help me, say, read reviews of the sought-after doctor written by people I didn't know and had no particular reason to trust.
The doctor's phone would sometimes be listed and sometimes not. In the latter case, you might even be asked to click through to a Web site and register.
There is a way around this: Simply type in, say, "Dr. Marcus Welby Santa Monica." You'd straightaway get a spot-on, Google-created listing of his address and phone number, accompanied by a map of his office and a link to directions on getting there.
Granted, that's not much of a trick to have to remember. But if you aren't aware of the exact words you need to use in the search and instead type "Marcus Welby family medicine Santa Monica," chances are good you'll be dumped into a tar pit of junky, useless Web sites.
It's much the same for finding other kinds of information, and it's a reminder of the way Google giveth and taketh away at the same time.
One part of Google is busy creating indexes of online information while at the same time filtering out "spam," which in this context means Web sites whose only function is to make money off the fact you land on them, without providing any sort of "value-added" information in the process.
Another part of Google, though, creates the programs that pay Web developers to put ads on their sites, thus creating the incentive to make pointless Web pages in the first place.
The company isn't unaware of these issues and is constantly tinkering with its internal software that rates Web sites to eliminate the tricks that less-useful sites can use to artificially increase their rankings and get in your face in the first place.
A few years back, the home repair field was blighted with these sorts of "Potemkin Web sites," which exist only to collect click-based ad revenue without providing anything useful in return. Google made some internal adjustments and many of the sites disappeared from the top of search results.
This sort of eternal vigilance is the price that needs to be paid for a utilitarian Web. Since Google is both the cause and solution to the problem of spammy Web data, users have little choice but to hope it continues to have the resources and inclination to stay one step ahead of that which it set in motion.
