Unpredictable. Unfocused. Just like life.

Robert is searching for the Toshiba Gigabeat music player and doesn't find the Toshiba site. He thinks this is a search engine relevancy problem.

I actually went to http://www.toshiba.com and http://www.toshiba.co.jp/worldwide. No mention of the Gigabeat. No search box. No user friendly way for me to even know the Gigabeat exists. In fact, I couldn't even find it there.

Search engines index web sites. If the manufacturer web site doesn't mention the product, then the search engine will never know about it.

Toshiba is a big company, and consumer devices make up only a small part of the product line. They aren't going to pay much attention to them. Apple on the other hand lives and breathes iPod. And the search engines have no problem finding Apple as the first hit when you search for "iPod".

Search engines can only find what is there. They can't yet make inferences. And that isn't a relevancy problem.

Though Robert is correct in saying that there is still room for improvement in search.