It pains me to write this. Amazon has long been one of my shining favourites on the web. Sure, they carried lots of stuff, which always makes them popular. Particularly when you're addicted to books, as I am. But they were (are still, in many cases) also smart. And there is nothing I enjoy more than watching smart companies do smart things.

I guess that's why it's particularly painful to have to struggle with an incredibly stupid thing.

I'm talking, of course, about Amazon's new "Search Inside the Book" feature. Man, did this thing get a lot of press when it launched. Which continues to this day. And at first, I really didn't care.

That, of course, didn't last long.

See, I use Amazon every single week - sometimes every single day. Looking up books for myself and for friends, reading my new recommended titles, viewing books recommended by friends or articles or blogs, growing the wish list from hell, and yes, buying books. (Though I will admit I usually buy from their Canadian arm, to save on shipping, etc.)

And I've been saddened, then mildly irritated, then frustrated, and now highly annoyed by what their shiny "Search inside the book" feature has done to my search results.

It's rendered them useless, in many cases. Which is sad. Even sadder when you consider that their search used to be so smart that I regularly held it up as an example of what we should be trying to accomplish at work.

Never mind the fact that the search result interface is now cluttered with a ton of words (excerpts from books) I don't care about and don't want to read. I could (as a hardy user accustomed to overlooking even the most egregious interfaces) put up with it so long as my search results are relevant. But in so many ways, that relevance is now gone.

I'll give you an example.

I was recently looking for travel books on Paris, France (with the hopes of going there someday soon, yes). So I did a search for paris travel. The results were somewhat promising; the top five books were:

Paris (Eyewitness Travel Guides)
Frommer's Paris 2004
Walking Paris : Thirty Original Walks In and Around Paris
The Riches of Paris : A Shopping and Touring Guide
Michael Brein's Guide to Paris by the Metro

But since there are guaranteed to be dozens upon dozens of travel books for Paris, I did what I've always done (BSITB - Before Search Inside The Book): switch the sort from "Featured Products" to by "Average Customer Review". Other customer's opinions matter to me. I don't want just any travel book; I want the one other Amazon readers think is best.

Hmm.

Now the top 5 books were:

Seabiscuit
Waiting in Vain
Flags of Our Fathers
The Count of Monte Cristo
James Cameron's Titanic

Somewhat less relevant, wouldn't you say?

Let's try again: a search for user experience. The default ("featured product") sort brings back:

The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web
Observing the User Experience: A Practitioner's Guide to User Research
Microsoft Windows User Experience
Convergence Design
Built for Use: Driving Profitability Through the User Experience

Pretty good. But let's switch again to the "Average Customer Review", so I can know which is the best book to buy on the subject:

The Count of Monte Cristo
Power of One
The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy
The Soulforge (Dragonlance: The Raistlin Chronicles, Book 1)
What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Fibromyalgia

As you can see, the results are totally pooched. And inexplicably, I should apparently read The Count of Monte Cristo, because it is highly relevant to me - it has stuff to tell me about both travelling to Paris and user experience design. [sarcasm]

Frustrated and annoyed, I have checked their advanced search page monthly to find some way to shut off the damned search within a book, which is obviously skewing the results. No dice. That's right. There's no way to not search within the book. You're stuck with searching within the book whether you like it or not. And despite my hopes, they've never thought to give users a way to opt out.

Amazon has killed my search results, and in doing so tromped all over one of their best competitive advantages: the plethora of user reviews.

I will admit that Amazon still does OK for specific searches - looking for a book title? If you're patient enough to put it in quotes, you'll find the title. But generalist searches, particularly ones where you want to sort by price or by any other means than their "featured products" list, are now toast. Every time I get annoyed by this, I'm spending less time at Amazon than before. I'm going instead to their competitors.

That's a bad way to do business, folks.

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