Understanding how search engines think can help you think critically when searching other areas. For example, today I decided to finally buy my summer plane tickets when we travel to see family. It is a complex flight (Seoul > Hawaii > Portland > Seattle > Dallas > Memphis > and back to Seoul).
My first instinct was to use a travel agency. Tried one in Seoul and one in the States. Total cost, $4,000 per ticket.
My second instinct was to buy through the airline and cut out the middle man...cost of $3,000.
I still was not satisfied. Compared five different Internet ticket sites and fount www.travelocity.com to be the cheapest and best features over the competition:
> I get to see each options for each leg of the journey, with the price difference shown. This was huge for me because I saw that it was only $30 more to skip a layover which is key when you have babies.
> I was able to see the seating chart and choose my own seats.
> Travelocity will reimburse me the difference if the price of the tickets drop. Comforting to know.
And the best part of it all...the price per ticket was $1,500!I thought this had to be an error, to be cheaper than the carrier. I called Delta and asked them to match it but they said Travelocity can offer cheaper prices because they buy in bulk. Good to know!
In conclusion, if I would have been lazy, I would have paid $4,000. If I would have relied on instincts, I would have paid $3,000. Instead, I earned about $1,750 per hour for the three hours I researched since I bought my family's tickets on Travelocity. Winner winner chicken dinner.
Note: Thinking of switching to Chrome since I already wrote this once and Firefox froze on me again. Just waiting for the delicious sidebar chrome extension.