It may not come as a surprise to you, but it bears noting that the internet is a large place. Of course we’re not talking in terms of literal space, but rather the volume of information available on it.
In fact, it estimated that something in the range of 2.5 million terabytes of new data are created online every single day. To put it another way, if you were to try to read everything currently available online right now, it would take the average person over 8500 years to do so.
Fortunately, there are alternatives to this. Since the earliest days of the world wide web, the idea of a search engine was seen to be a good one. Such a site compiles a directory of existing web pages and then ranks them in search results designed to offer the closest match to your search query.
These have become such a synonymous part of our online experience that the biggest of these search engines – Google – has had its name adopted as a verb for the act of conducting any web search.
In some ways, nothing here has changed – to google is the most common way people look up information online, but this may be showing signs of changing. That’s because the internet is increasingly decentralized, with more and more data being contained within proprietary apps and social media platforms, or outside the reach of search crawlers.
People are also increasingly looking for smarter search alternatives, something that is increasingly beneficial in our modern SEO-obsessed world. Having trouble finding what you’re looking for? Consider trying out these next generation web search lifehacks below.
Take a Different View
The world has moved on from purely text-based search engines, though few have received the memo. Image recognition software, emboldened by AI, has come on leaps and bounds in recent years, and this has made the prospect of searching using images not only viable, but often superior to text search – especially if you’re stuck in the unenviable position of trying to describe something you’re looking for.
Here the Google Lens service is currently the best in class, and offers an impressive toolkit to boost your search potential. It can recognize products within images, utilize facial recognition to search for prominent public figures, and can even read text with real time translation. So next time you’ve stuck trying to search for a painting you’ve seen, consider snapping a photo and letting the computer do the work for you.
Seek Out The Specialists
Google and large search engines like it are excellent generalists, but they fall down when it comes to offering quality search directories of specific sectors or niche interests. In such situations, it’s almost always a better move to seek out reputable comparison platforms or directories focused on the subject in question.
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For example, leading online gaming directory Vegasslotsonline IN furnishes casino aficionados with thousands of unique slot titles, all searchable within its own directories. It also serves as a hub for the wider gaming community due to offering competitive welcome bonuses, sign-up offers and other deals on a huge array of online casinos. This makes it a one stop shop for people searching this sector. What’s more, gamers can rely on the industry insider expertise on this site in order to connect them with experiences superior to what Google can deliver.
AI Supercharged Search
Of course the elephant in the room when it comes to discussing novel search modalities is AI. At present, it seems every big tech company from Google to Apple is racing to build and integrate AI into their services – but for the time being, OpenAI and their chief investor Microsoft have beaten them to the punch with their sensational LLM, ChatGPT.
For premium users, ChatGPT can now perform web searches in-app, but you don’t have to spend a penny to leverage its incredible contextual search potential. That’s because the latest modelled comes embedded and free to use within Microsoft’s own search rival, Bing.
Historically the butt of jokes, Bing is currently the only major search engine that offers integrated AI, and the results are truly impressive. ChatGPT, its underlying model, has been trained on masses of internet data, and can infer, predict and understand much more sophisticated or nuanced search queries, letting you get on with the business of browsing and not having to translate your desires into keyword friendly search terms.
