Receptional_Andy - 11:45 pm on May 15, 2008 (gmt 0)

Catch-up to what, though?

To understanding words; translating a user search to a relevant result.

Every internet search involves a person who usually has a very clear idea of what they want to see when they undertake a search. They'll probably type two or three keywords to try to describe what they're looking for. But if you ask them, they can tell you all kinds of other information about what page they are looking for, including massively complex associations between different words and topics.

Search engines try to close the gap by analysing patterns of data - a very reasonable approach because they need massive scalability - but certainly isn't perfect ;)

I think this is a key advantage that you as (for example) an SEO have over a computer program. Of course, you can also look at how the search engines approach things and combine the two: something that a search engine will never be able do.