UK Search Engine Google has entered the news in the last few days as it relates to anti-trust allegations. This very much mirrors similar attention that Microsoft received some years ago for much the same reason. In both cases, there was (or is) a major force in the industry in question and it is to the point where a near-monopoly exists. Google is certainly not alone in the search engine market as there are other ones like Bing and Yahoo. However, Google has a commanding share of the market despite the presence of competitors and Microsoft was and is still very similar. There is one other thing that those two companies have in common and that is that they are both American in terms of their origin and headquarters of operations. This is not a lament or slam on the United States as they are a great ally to the United Kingdom and the companies based out of that country have improved the world in many ways. That being said, the best people to make products and services for the people of the United Kingdom are people that are born, raised and that live in the United Kingdom. With that in mind, the author of this proposal is presenting the idea of a UK-specific search engine that is much more regulated and controlled in terms of what makes it into the search engine results and how/whether people can buy their way into better search results.

The author of this report is suggesting and proposing a search engine that requires registration and verification that they are not peddling material such as pornography, spam and so forth and there will also be a focus on businesses that are UK-based or that have operations in the United Kingdom. Rather than using the model that Google has come to know and love through the use of ads and such, the people who register with this new search engine will get the luxury of having a UK-only list of search results. This will require a fee paid by the people that register but it will be advantageous to business owners and social media-oriented consumers, just to name two main groups, that wish to operate and search within a community that is entirely UK-specific and that is not full of people trying to peddle ads and other annoyances. Entirely too many websites, even reputable ones like news sites and such, have become starting points for links that look like news stories or something else that they are really not.

Aims & Objectives

The aims and objectives are fairly obvious but can be fleshed out a little more in this section. The first aim of this search engine is to combat the dominance of Google in the United Kingdom and around the world. While the antitrust actions of the European Union are a good thing, it will take a true and obvious competitor to step up to truly combat what Google is doing in the UK area. Second, the search engine will be created, operated and full of only people that live or operate a business in the United Kingdom area. This will not prevent foreign companies from entering the fray but it will be on the terms of the search engine and this new search engine will not favour people that are willing to pay more to elevate their search results nor will there be command and control coming from someone outside of the United Kingdom. Third, there is the idea, and it's an appealing one, that this could be expanded to encompass all of the European Union at some point. People can search by individual country or EU-wide. Regardless, the location of the results and the people engaging in commerce and social activity will be limited to the United Kingdom or the European Union, depending on the scope size that the searcher wants to use. The overall objective, at least initially, is to create this search engine so that it operates in a self-sustaining way while not compromising the ethics and rules regarding ads and other sources of revenue generation. Indeed, the people that register will need to pay a fee but it will be a nominal one and it will be money well spent.

The timeframe of this project will be done in a way so as to have the search engine go live on January 1st, 2017. This will allow for about eight months to get everything in place, start up a customer base and make sure the search engine is properly designed. The resources that will be required will be competent and experienced...

The three primary hires that will start the rest of the hiring and other processes will be the Chief Executive Officer (business), a project manager (project management) and a Chief Technology Officer. Other important hires will be a general counsel for legal and compliance issues, information technology staff to work up the proper hardware and software frameworks and so forth.
The cost for the items mentioned above, including the staffing, software and equipment, will require start-up cash of about half a million British pounds. This should be enough to pay salaries and acquire the starting equipment. The business will make use of capital funding collections and other donations/contributions from people that are excited about having a UK-centric search engine that is not built on annoying ads and/or owned and operated by interests outside of the United Kingdom or the European Union. As far as how everything will be monitored and measured, the project manager and the information technology subject-matter experts will work together to establish what is needed to become operational, how long each step will take and the critical path that will exist in terms of what has to be done on time and what can wait in terms of how the project needs to progress to be live and ready to go on time.

There will also be marketing staff and other professionals that will promote and spread the news about the search engine. Initially, things will just be informational. The word needs to be spread before there is a launch so that the company is not starting from zero in terms of visibility and awareness when the site launches. In a way, there is the goal to "hit the ground running" once the site goes live. The one thing that will probably be outsourced is the payment system. The site will make use of the common and trusted third party payment systems like PayPal, Android/Google and Apple Pay. This is only because these are established companies and the level of trust that people have when it comes to their financial data is very important. Everything else will come from within the United Kingdom. All vendors, employees and resources will be sourced from the United Kingdom. This will be done even if foreign sources are cheaper so as to show a sign of loyalty to the people that could or would do business with the search engine.

In terms of tracking metrics and progress, there will be two stages to this. Between now and the turn of 2017, there will be a tracking of each task and how everything is aligning in terms of the deadline and the critical path of the project. If things are falling behind, all efforts will be made to catch things up and get back on track. However, if the launch date does need to be delayed for a good reason, then that will be done. In doing the marketing before the launch, a date certain will not be communicated until a few weeks or months before. By then, it should be known when everything will be in place. In then, the information will be more general and will relate to the concept and the idea of the search engine. In any event, the progress of the tasks and the project will be tracked in terms of quality of completion and whether things are on time. After things are launched, the two primary things that will be tracked are customer count and traffic on the search engine. However, there are other important things such as customer satisfaction from those that bought access to the search engine, whether end-users believe the site is designed well and functions properly and so forth. These latter two metrics will be tracked on a monthly basis and dips in satisfaction or performance will be addressed immediately. Generally speaking, performance measures should be flat or rise over time. If there is a regression in any important metrics, it must and will be figured out immediately why this is the case. Corrective actions will be made to facilitate a return to good performance. This could come through the evaluation and improvement of a process, an evaluation and improvement of training (or the people actually working on the project) and so forth. In general, there will be a continuing measurement and comparison when it comes to processes, people, website traffic, customer…