The Problem With Telling Someone to "Google it"

Google recently celebrated their 11^th birthday. There’s no surprise they’ve been around that long and it’s not like they’re going anywhere…  I’ve been a huge advocate of Google and once wrote a paper on “The Google Guys” being my idols when asked to write about who I look up to (yes I’m a geek, and I’m not afraid to admit it). I’ve never seen a problem with the phrase “just Google it” until today.

In talking with a friend, they were trying to tell me how they were told something was on Google maps, but it wasn’t showing up when they were doing a search. We talked for a few minutes and I just couldn’t figure out what he was talking about. It was RIGHT THERE when I looked it up. Finally I asked him what he was seeing instead of the item he was looking for. He told me “I went to msn.com and typed it in… it’s not showing up”.

We have adopted the verb “google” into the English language. Dictionary.com defines that verb as:

“to search for information on the Internet, esp. using the Google search engine”.

The problem with adopting it is that we assume that everyone is using Google. As the next generation is introduced to search engines, it won’t be just Google.

For those of us who use Google on a daily basis, it is an accurate assumption. Yet, when talking to friends who might use msn/bing we run the risk of pulling up completely different results. No two search engines think exactly alike. Google has plenty of apps and so many more coming down the line, that it is not about to disappear, but the competition is getting greater.

People who don’t spend a great deal of time on a computer don’t always know that there is a difference between Google and Bing. Imagine being a business owner and looking at your rankings between the two search engines. Chances are they’re not going to be the same.

Don’t get me wrong, my loyalty remains in Google as a search engine.

The moral of the story is be careful when you tell someone to ”just google it”. If you know that a story or event is listed on the top of Google, make sure you friends you’re sharing the story with using Google to find it. If not, who knows where they might end up!

How often do you catch yourself using the phrase “just google it”?