What is the "Invisible Web"?

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

Please don't take me too serious, but I always found the term the "Invisible Web" a bit strange. If we are talking about the same web I do not find it "invisible" at all. I can go to all the pages out there, query all the online databases I please and enjoy text, multimedia and mixed format content. The fact that search engines can't do that dosen't make it invisible, does it? In other words: Is it dark out side because a blind mand say so? :D

[rustybrick]

So this is more of a philosophical question? "If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?"

Is this referred to as the "Invisible Web" or the "Hidden Web"? Both have slightly different meanings.

Invisible means something is there but we can't see it. So in that case, we know content is out there but we can't access it. So yes I think that if its invisible to the searchers. But was that your question? Invisible to the Web? Invisible to the Searcher? Invisible Web?

Im going to cut this post short and not get into the hidden Web. Someone else can try to pick up on that.

I dont think there is any wrong answer. :)

[Brad]

It's not a matter of being invisible per se, it is that there are many pages and whole websites that just do not appear on the spidering engines' radar screens. The spidering engines like to pretend, to the public, that they index everything when in fact they do not even index 50% of the web.

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

- and, maybe (just speculating) they want us to think that certain parts of the web is "hidden" or "invisible" when the fact is spidering technology is just not good enough (yet) to cope with the complexity of the web :)

[rustybrick]

Mikkel,

Who do you think made up this term? Who is using it?

Are you saying that the search engines are calling these pages invisible to downplay their challenges to crawl the 'whole' Web?

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

No, as I said in the beginning: Don't take this too serious. It's just a wording issue. I do not think this is some great conspiracy going on to fool the world of search-geeks hehe :)

No, I just found it funny. I am actually not sure who came up with the term, and there is nothing wrong with it as such - if you just remember to also say who it's hidden to. Beacause, as I said, it's not hidden to me.

[Incubator]

So this is more of a philosophical question? "If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?"

:)same equation : "If a tree falls in the woods and a squirrel sees it, does it grab its nuts and run?"

I dont believe crawls are fast enough to pick up content as fast as it is produced. Is there an invisble web? Perhaps .....or is just none ranking information floating until it is found ?

Cheers

Wc

[bwelford]

If in doubt, why not go to an authoritative source, The Invisible Web (http://www.invisible-web.net/iw_introduction.pdf), by Chris Sherman and Gary Price.