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CATEGORY SEARCHING
This is a preliminary "top-of-the-head" presentation. It is mostly to help the writer organize his thoughts on the subject. Don't take it too seriously. It is not complete and may be way off-base
At Google, all of their listed subjects can't be located on one alphabetized page -- they are all listed on category pages (and sub-category pages)
The main category page, for instance, has the following 16 sub-categories listed: Arts (52*) / Business (53) / Computers (53) / Games (32) / Health (45) / Home (25) / Kids and Teens (14) / News (24) / Recreation (43) / Reference (27) / Regional (11) / Science (30) / Shopping (44) / Society (38) / Sports (92) / World (79) ( we think they mean "world languages")
* -- The numbers following the subject are the number of sub-categories for each.
That is a total of 662 sub-categories
Each of the sub-categories leads to sub-sub-categories -- in the case of "business", for instance -- there are 9 sub-sub-categories under "regional" and 23,929 under "Arts and Entertainment. We didn't add them -- but there are probably a total of 500,000 or so sub-sub-categories (about 10,000 for each sub-category). In other words, there are about 10,000 sub-sub categories for each sub-category.
If that is true, the 662 sub-categories will lead to 6,620,000 sub-sub categories
And these sub-sub-categories each leads to the next level of categories. Under business we find the sub-sub category "healthcare" which has 20 sub-sub-sub categories. If that is typical -- we now have 120,000,000 categories
One of these is "health care management": that leads to 2 categories at the next level (sub-sub-sub-sub categories?). If that pattern is typical -- there are something like 240,000,000 categories at this level.
One of the categories at this level is "consulting", where you will find a web page listing for 79 consulting companies. If that pattern is typical -- there are a total more than 19 billion web pages at the end of all the strings of categories in the Google directory.
The following shows the click-string for the above (Google Directory > Business > Healthcare > Healthcare Management > Consulting). You can get to a list of 79 consulting companies in only 4 clicks, once you are on the Google Directory page.
That seems like a wonderful way to search -- but in the real world, nobody would automatically follow that string of clicks. If you are looking for a health consultant -- why start with business? Why not start with 'health' or 'science' or 'computers' if your problem involves the use computers to find answers to health questions.
The following was written for a website we developed a few years ago
As a model
for a classification system for this site, we considered the Dewey Decimal
System
--- but, we instead
designed
a
HUMAN
POWERED
SEARCH
SYSTEM
(without
numbers), whereby the logically chosen classification names themselves and
your intuitive use of them will lead you to the information for which you
are searching. We believe this will turn out to be more functional and efficient
than high powered search engines that are not very discriminating --- they
usually dig up more leads than are needed or useful.
We've also created a Linked Alphabetical Site Index (LASI (tm)) to assist
in your search. We herewith lay claim to being the first site with such a
linked index (installed in June 1999) and would appreciate hearing from anyone
who
thinks there were others before us. Ultimately, we believe all sites will
have such an index, because it simply is the most efficient way to find what
you
are looking for. Tell everyone you saw it here first.
TO BE CONTINUED