Read an interesting article today that tries to help explain the roles of each of the stakeholders in web search (searchers, search engines, and site owners). I like how he laid out the responsibilities of each:

Roles and Responsibilities of Searchers

• Locate and use search engines with results that best match their requirements and personalities (demographic and psychographic profiles)
• Use search modifiers and tools in order to tailor search results to their exact requirements
• Have a basic awareness of technical issues
• Be able to recognise clearly labelled advertising in search results
• Obey terms of service of the search engines they use and the sites they visit

Roles and Responsibilities of Search Engines

• Crawl and index the Web
• Don’t place undue strain on Web servers
• Represent Web sites fairly in search results
• Obey and further develop robots standards
• Obtain a market of searchers
• Determine relevance of resources to queries made by those searchers
• Provide good quality, trustworthy search results with clearly labelled advertising (if any)
• Obey the law

Roles and Responsibilities of Site Owners

• Provide a good quality Web site designed to appeal to particular target markets
• Correct any fundamental problems with architecture, accessibility, usability
• Write or rewrite the content to ensure suitability for the target markets
• Make good use of the available robots standards
• Market the site using links designed for people to see and follow
• Obey the terms of service of the search engines and directories that site is submitted to