Only Sites Dedicated To…
Why?
Many times the information you are looking for is best garnered from sites dedicated to that particular subject and not by searching and getting it from many general places.
How?
A meta-website that lists and allows you to search only sources dedicated to a particular and very specific subject.
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Rate Answers by Users Paying for Them
Why?
As a good measurement of what was the right answer.
How?
Allow users to donate how much they want (maybe even less than 1 dollar cent), based on their satisfaction of the result they got in the SERP. This will give a better indication as to what is a really useful answer to a specific query.
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Search the Mall Based on Specific Item
Why?
It’s easy to find all the shops in the category that might stock the item you are looking for. But then you have to visit every store only to find out many don’t have the item you are looking for in stock at the moment.
How?
Have an item based search app or website that allows you to browse at a much more granular level like “10 years old swim trunk.” It will show you all the items currently in stock, which shop you can get it and at what price.
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Better Control of How Search Results Are Optimized for You
Why?
For many of the things you search the web for, search engines will have an algorithm to show you what they think are the best results for you. Some try to deduct from information they have on your behavior (search history, clicks, etc.), what would be personally best for you. They also offer some simple options for more advanced search, like similarity or boolean operators. Wouldn’t you like more control in an easier way for better results?
How?
Allow the user more control over what he thinks is best. Allow him to say “I put more weight on anything by or connected to the following people when you are returning results for this search,” or “don’t show me anything that relates to an individual concept or a subject.” All of these options should not rely on me deciding what keywords are relevant or not, but more on a conceptual level. The algorithm should be able to deduce in a useful way what belongs to these concepts, people, situations, etc., without you having to “spell it out.”
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Define Terms for Kids
Why?
When you type “define moratorium” in google most of the time you get a pretty good explanation back. These are mostly hard to understand for kids.
How?
It would be good to have a kids version of these. Maybe in the format of “define moratorium for kids”. Google can do it, but it could also be probably done by a dedicated site that is optimized for this template of a keyword query.
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