The future of search: no keywords 1 Oct 2007

Over at iMedia Connection, Matt Kain suggests that the future of search is no keywords:

"The big brains out there are asking: 'Why do we need keywords at all?' If we used what the linguists call 'natural language,' we'd ask a question in simple (or even complex) terms, and not have to get obsessive about guessing the right code."

Perhaps we'll be proved wrong on this, but it's hard to see users ever entering complete sentences as search queries. In a fast-paced world like ours - a world where SMS-text-messagers can't even be bothered to type vowels - it seems unlikely that users will take the time to formulate questions like "On what date was world-reknowned theoretical physicist Albert Einstein born?", when "Einstein birthday" already does the trick.

Natural language is best suited to the world of search indexing, not search querying.