It just requires a group of people to start a new bunch of niche indexing projects.<p>My idea, which may be a bit off the wall, is really to go down a path whereby you <i>only</i> index a subject. So node.js guys just give a search engine that indexes node.js material, Python people index Python articles, short-haired cat people index only short-haired cats... They key is to make the subject you are indexing manageable in scope. So you keep it small.<p>The key things that Google have IMO is how good they are at locating documents, and ensuring that they have mapped out their search to what is relevant. But I think that for those who know what they are looking for, specific indexing of a particular domain of knowledge would make searching more relevant.<p>Now the next steps are to find a way to discover this content. But in this case, submitting to the smaller indexers would be helpful. Take HN for instance - in the grand scheme of things it&#x27;s a big index of stuff that interests hackers, now if you indexed HN that would be a search engine based on user submitted links.<p>Then you could figure out a way for indexes to collaborate with each other.<p>What it would in essence do would be to democratize search. And it would penalise information that wasn&#x27;t in the open, though someone could make it work by paying for links to good content and charging a monthly fee to use their index. The index would be a broker, but the more reputable it is the more content it can index. And the market would stabilise on a price - if you can&#x27;t afford it, you use a competitor, of you could make your own.<p>It would need a framework for decentralised collaboration, and perhaps a good mechanism for the indexing and displaying search results.<p>Just an idea. Might not be practical!