That's an interesting point conceptually: the best result for some purposes might be best for a reason that comes from the offline world. For example, if you want to buy rare things, you want to find the dealer with the best expertise and access to sources of those things. That dealer might have an incredibly minimal web site with almost no content -- maybe just contact information.
The original link-structure analysis idea in PageRank was meant to address issues like this a little bit: if everybody links to that dealer's page, it's a good suggestion that that dealer is important, regardless of the content of the page. But there are also things that people don't talk about on the web that much, or don't link to on the web that much (especially if they relate to a secretive, insular, or otherwise not-heavily-web-using community).
You could say it's no fair expecting search engines to know about social facts they can't possibly observe, but in any case it's a reminder of how complicated the idea of relevance or the best result really is!
The original link-structure analysis idea in PageRank was meant to address issues like this a little bit: if everybody links to that dealer's page, it's a good suggestion that that dealer is important, regardless of the content of the page. But there are also things that people don't talk about on the web that much, or don't link to on the web that much (especially if they relate to a secretive, insular, or otherwise not-heavily-web-using community).
You could say it's no fair expecting search engines to know about social facts they can't possibly observe, but in any case it's a reminder of how complicated the idea of relevance or the best result really is!