Will the next generation of the web’s top search engines be human-created, social networks, like del.icio.us; mathematical algorithm-based, like Google, or a combination of both?

This recent CNET News article discusses the search possibilities and the future of search engine results.

From the article –

In an acknowledgement that some questions may be better answered by a human than a search engine algorithm, Yahoo, Microsoft and others are embracing so-called social search.

Social search generally refers to a Web site or service that relies on the participation of a community to come up with answers to specific questions or to provide links to Web sites or other resources of common interest.

Don’t bet on social search usurping the algorithm, say experts. But it’s likely social-search answers will provide a strong second option to mathematical results.

“Ultimately, it’s likely that a combination of algorithmic search and the various types of social-search systems will fuse into a hybrid that will work really well for satisfying a wide variety of information needs,” Search Engine Watch Executive Editor Chris Sherman concluded in a recent blog posting titled “What’s the Big Deal With Social Search?”

You can read the entire article @ Internet search gets Web 2.0 style.

The Virtual Chase has a great question and answer section that deals with a number of important online research issues and problems, including: people search topics, public record research and other web research issues.

You can read the people search and web research Q & A @ The Virtual Chase.

According to an announcement last week by blog search engine Technorati, their weblog search site is now tracking 50 million blogs.

As more and more weblogs come online and sites like Technorati.com and IceRocket.com get better at tracking them, these blog search engines will continue to be a great, growing source of people search and public record information.

So far, we have found three of the best blog search engines to be technorati.com, icerocket.com and blogsearch.google.com.

PBS has published a last name search that allows people to find out how common their last name ( surname ) is in the U.S., based on data from the social security index.

You can use the last name search @ Last Name Search.

For those of you who are tired of allowing computer algorithms to determine relevant search engine results for you and would prefer search results based on human recommendations, Yahoo’s MyWeb search engine may be your answer.

Search results on Yahoo’s MyWeb are based on web sites and pages that actual people have submitted and “tagged” with relevant keywords. These are web sites that actual people have submitted, tagged, voted on and determined to be relevant search results for your search queries.

You can also sign up for your own Yahoo MyWeb account and start bookmarking, saving and tagging your favorite sites for inclusion in Yahoo’s social search engine.

You can visit Yahoo’s social search engine @ Yahoo MyWeb Social Search Engine.