We are all living within a filter bubble, with the search engines and some heavyweight websites tailoring, cutting, boxing and packaging up the results of our search queries into lovely little personalised treats.
The days of information for all are quickly becoming information for one, with Google, Bing, Facebook and even Netflix touting algorithms that select what they think we want to see based on our search history, our location, our CTR and bounce rate on results and numerous other factors.
If you want to learn a little more about filter bubbles and how they affect us, then go and watch this great TED talk by Eli Pariser.
I’m in two minds myself about filter bubbles. On the one hand, they make my job a little bit more difficult than I’d like. It’s my job to improve visibility for businesses online, to better their chances of being found, to promote products and services that are beneficial to users and push brands online, and any number of factors may lead to a user not being served my client as a result of their filter bubble. On the other hand, I can generally find the results I want quickly and efficiently within a couple of searches.
I’ve been noticing a bit of a buzz starting to generate around a new search engine that’s set to do away with the filter bubbles and so much more – Duck Duck Go. I’d seriously advise you to go and check it out. It’s a great search engine, and for one so young is doing so many things right (especially the advanced queries).
Because they don’t track and log results like the big search engines, they don’t create a user profile and they don’t personalise results for you.
I was dubious on my first couple of searches, almost suspicious, but every once in a while I find myself coming back to it when I can’t get what I need out of Google. The thing is that I do find what I need on Duck Duck Go. No shitty adsense sites with flimsy content, just actually reliable, and in most cases, entirely accurate search results.
It’s going to be a difficult switch; I feel slightly institutionalised by Google, but Duck Duck Go…I think it’s going to…no I can’t say it…
