Search Engines - Friend or Foe

Jakob Nielsen wrote an article called “Search Engine as Leeches on the Web”. He talks about how search engines extract too much of the web’s value, leaving too little for the websites that actually create the content. He shows an eye tracking study, where the user is creating for information about LaGuardia in which the airport was named after.

His point is that the search engine is taking the content from the website and displaying it on the search results page. The search engine didn’t create this content or pay for it, and they are displaying the content. There are too many free services being created just to drive traffic to the search engines. He says that search engines are becoming answer engines.

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/search_engines.html