I don't understand what's he's trying to say, though I get the feeling that the author misses the point of why search is good. Good search has very little to do with the words - most search engines got that part mostly right, all independently.<p>What makes search great, the real underlying principle, is the link graph, the authority measurement. What Google was able to do was not just make a vast catalog, but to sort it by goodness.<p>You can wrap up that measure in a search box or whatever UI you want.