People are generally happy with Google because they can often find something they're looking for in the first page or two of results. However, this ignores the fact that much of Google finds isn't relevant at all: but since we're smart humans, we can quickly skim past the misses.

I got an interesting look at this by checking the referrals to Blogos over the last couple of weeks: there are a number that come from google or other search engines, and they often surprise me. Check these out:

• from www.google.co.uk: ikea catalogue distribution vs the bible [this was a good hit, i referenced an article by Martin Roth about this]
• from search.yahoo.com: hindi christian song [bad hit, complete unrelated pieces of two different posts]
• from www.google.com: "Luke 11:35" [good hit, pointing to a page that's posted but not quite done yet]
• from www.google.ca: lithuanian blog [so-so hit, against the phrase "I wouldn't have guessed there were Lithuanian speakers reading my blog": i'll bet this isn't what they were looking for]
• from www.google.com: "howard county md library" [curiously, i'm the #2 hit for this because i posted one of Jon Udell's bookmarklets for this, my local library]
• from www.google.com: "surprise language" hindi [oh-oh, i hope this wasn't my boss! But a good hit, i did write about this] Also: "Surprise Language" (DARPA). [guess that was a trendy post!]
• from www.google.com: scripture concordance [i'm surprised to be on the first page for this, but definitely a good hit]
• my current favorite, from www.google.com: how to create weblogs in hindi [i'm #3: i'll bet that person was disappointed!]

And don't forget the unseen peril of most information retrieval technology: you never know what you missed, only what you found. It's easy to be fooled into accepting what you got when you don't know what else is out there.

Tim Bray is doing an interesting series on search technology, by the way: i may have some comments when i catch up.