if the user is too unintelligent to click “search help” ..then they have absolutely no business existing, much less using any kind of indexing utility.

This is a joke, right? People aren’t too unintelligent, they simply can’t be bothered - and why should they be? For most people the web is not a way of life, it’s just a tool (and who really ever reads the instructions?)

Those large corporate companies are not loosing (sic) money from AdWords.

I’ll just have to disagree with you here (as do a lot of major brands here in the UK).

All those companies have AdWords of their own I’m sure…that show up multiple times when searching for products from other companies and the like. It’s not just a 1-way street here…

That’s part of the point; at the time of me originally writing this, bidding on other brands was not allowed on Google. Amazingly, just after introducing this function, they changed their policy. As mentioned above, the lawsuits are now flowing and we’ll see how that ends.

Why wasn’t this made an issue 10 years ago?

Err, what? Because Google only just added the ’search within a site’ box in the last few months. I fear that you may have missed the point of my entire post.

In my opinion this is just another over-hyped bulletin to seed interest.

And I entirely respect your opinion. Even if it is wrong.

The site: search feature has existed as long as I can remember. Years upon years. And if the user is too unintelligent to click “search help” (which is the first thing I did when I got heavy into searches around 11 or so) or the current “advanced search” then they have absolutely no business existing, much less using any kind of indexing utility.

1) Those large corporate companies are not loosing money from AdWords.

What you’re basically saying is people are too lazy to refine their search on google to find a competing company. If they want to try something different from the major label, that’s exactly what they’re going to do. Whether AdWords exists or not really has little effect on this. It simply gives them another route for finding one.

2) All those companies have AdWords of their own I’m sure…that show up multiple times when searching for products from other companies and the like. It’s not just a 1-way street here…

3) Why wasn’t this made an issue 10 years ago?

4) In my opinion this is just another over-hyped bulletin to seed interest.

Google is an out of control monopoly. Better buy the stock now at 450 down from 700. If you cannot beat them Join them.
At some point publishers will revolt with a lawsuit and Google will get smacked. But while we argue about some egregious infringements on property rights. Google silently chips away at the fringes by slowly controlling all the tools, data and optimization methods.

“I like this feature and even though it might hurt some websites by drawing the users attention to AdWords ads it is (from a user perspective) a very helpfull feature!”

I think what you mean is that it is, from your perspective, a useful feature. I feel quite strongly that most normal users (and anyone who found this on Sphinn is, by their very nature, not a normal user) will find it a disappointing feature. If you’re expecting to search a retail site, where is the option to filter by price; if it’s a publishing (newspaper site) where’s the filter by section or author; etc…

For anyone used to using the site: search, this may not be a big deal. But I’d bet that 99% of the online audience have no idea that the site: search even exists.

I like this feature and even though it might hurt some websites by drawing the users attention to AdWords ads it is (from a user perspective) a very helpfull feature!

Thats an excellent observation Will - I hadnt thought of how SiS will affect PR sculpting techniques.