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Search engine technology is a male dominated field.  Sure there are females involved in search engine algorithm design, but generally, search engines are built by men.

This leads to the question, how would a women design a search engine?

So my family and I were watching Extreme Home Makeover on the weekend.  It’s kind of a ritual for us.  My son loves the show, so we watch it together.

And, invariably on every show, my wife finds something she doesn’t particularly like on the show.  It’s not that she’s picky.  In fact she has some very good points.

For example, in the kitchen, why is the oven always low?  Why can’t the oven be about waist height?  It would make it easier to get things in and out of it.  The same goes for the dishwasher, and the clothes drier.

Of course that got me to thinking about search.  How would a women design a search engine?

Knowing that men design and build houses and it’s been that way for years, and that men also designed today’s search engines, what would a women do differently?

After all, it has only been in the last couple decades that women have been “allowed” to help design houses to suit them.  Don’t get me wrong here, I think such input is crucial to a properly designed house.  After all, there are certain aspects that we, as men, don’t consider.

For example, the end goal of a man is to make the home functional – three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a utility room, kitchen, living room and so on.  Yet a women tends to put more thought into a house – designing it as a living space rather than just a series of rooms thrown together.

Let me give you an example:  A few years ago my wife and I decided to design our own home.  So we each took a piece of paper and drew out what we thought would be a great house.

In mine, the living room and kitchen were on one side while the bedrooms and bathrooms were on the other.  In hers the living room and kitchen were central, with other rooms surrounding them.

I was thinking utility and function while she was thinking “meeting space” and “entertainment.”

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m merely making generalizations out of my own observations.  I know there are exceptions to the rules, but in general, men and women just deal with things differently and with different end goals in mind.

So this is where I got to thinking about the male influences of search engines.

After all, Google, for example, was designed by a couple of guys.  Same with Yahoo!

Their purpose is to help people find things quickly and easily.  Kind of like how men shop – get in, buy it and get out.

Imagine if a female designed a search engine?

Just think of all the things we men do differently.  When I search, I scan the top results, assume something at or near the top is what I want and then click away.  If it isn’t, I go back and scan again, or refine my search and start the process over.

But women tend to be more deliberate:  They spend a little longer on a search results page, reading more and looking for different things.

Further, I think men in general want to know that there are 10 billion matching results and, if need be, would go through all 10 billion to find the page they are looking for.

Women on the other hand, I think would rather see only 20 results, but they better darned well be THE best 20 results.

That’s why I equate shopping to search – men will pick the biggest home improvement store in the area to buy a screwdriver.  And they will go in, straight to the hand tool aisle, select the screwdriver they want and then head for the checkout.

Women, on the other hand, will select the smaller shopping center, knowing full well they need a screwdriver but will start at one end of the mall and work their way towards the hand tool store.  The shopping center may be smaller than the home improvement store but the woman will see more of it.  She will experience it.

And I think this is why it would be interesting to see a female designed search engine – because there would be more thought put into the design and presentation of the results.  Results would be chosen not because they are well optimized and have the most links, but because others recommended them.

Further, I don’t think we’d be presented with merely a list of results to chose from, rather the results would be more engaging and interactive.

Also, we wouldn’t get 10 billion results returned in .05 seconds.  Instead it would take 2 or 3 seconds and we’d only get 15 or 20 results but if what you want isn’t in those results than you searched wrong.

You see, I think searching the web with search engines is easier for men because men designed the system.  It has nothing to do with who is smarter.  It has to do with the system that is in place.  Because men designed the system, we are forcing women to conform to its use.

Imagine if search engines were designed, maintained and controlled by women?  The guy who dreads going shopping with his wife or girlfriend likely wouldn’t touch a computer ever again.  Not because the search engine would be bad but because we’d be forcing men to react to the results like women.

I don’t want this to sound like an “us versus them” article, nor am I saying one gender is superior to the other.  All I’m saying is that men and women are different.  They react differently to different stimuli and when they search they do so looking for different things in the search results.

Personally, I think I’d like to see this women designed search engine.  In some ways I think it would be far superior to what we have now.

Rob Sullivan is a SEO Consultant and Writer for Textlinkbrokers.com