Search Done Right

An interesting conversation has emerged across the blogs this week regarding how well—or not—enterprise search solutions perform at finding information to the satisfaction of the individual user within the confines of an organization.

The ball got rolling when Udi Manber, a vice president of engineering at Google said that his company used its own solution for internal search, adding: “It’s not that good—I’m complaining about it.” (Ouch. Well at least he has those great cafeterias!)

Do a simple experiment: Ask yourself or a colleague who works in a large organization this question: “How often do you use a web search engine versus a search engine that is ‘behind the firewall’ (i.e., to find information only available inside your organization)?” The two answers are typically very different. In fact, most internet-savvy people use a web search engine every day. The same people rarely or never use a search engine behind the firewall. But maybe they just don’t need it?