Introduction

The title of this chapter is a question I am sometimes asked as someone whose job title includes the words ‘resource discovery’.

Google is the ubiquitous technological tool which comes to mind whenever discovery online is thought about. As mentioned in this book's introduction, it took root so rapidly that within a few months of its launch, the name was being used as a synonym for searching, usage which has continued to the present day. In libraries, modern web-scale discovery tools such as Ex Libris’ Primo and its rivals are often discussed as being ‘like Google’ – there is a clear aim to promote these as similar to the web search behemoth.

In this chapter, ‘Google’ is used to refer to both the company and the web search tool, as is common usage. Clarification is given whenever it is not obvious which is meant.

In the chapter, we look at:

• what Google is and why it is so successful

• what is covered by Google – and what is not

• how Google approaches resources which are not web pages

• how Google has changed over the 20 years of its existence (and where it has not)

• whether there is any reason to use other web search engines and technologies

• the role of Google in the library sector and the future of Google.

What Google is and why it is so successful

Google was not the first discovery service for the internet. In the early days of the world wide web, there were sites listing other websites (notably one hosted at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN, then later the Yahoo! Directory), and also search engines (Lycos and AltaVista being the best known), which sent out ‘spiders’ or ‘web crawlers’ (today probably better known as ‘robots’) to harvest the text within pages so it could be added to the search indexes. But when Google appeared, it revolutionised the business of finding web pages.

The reason for this is twofold. First, the simple and iconic design, which has changed very little over the two decades of Google's life, at least when compared with other major websites. The design is confident, distinctive, and yet simple and uncluttered. The search box takes centre stage, and everything suggests to the user that this is going to be an easy experience.