[junker37]

> According to this logic, if results were listed alphabetically (i.e., based on a truly objective criteria), we would see folks naming everything beginning with "0" or "A".

This is seen in practice. The yellow pages were?(are?) alphabetical, which is why you see so many business that start with the letter A.

[1vuio0pswjnm7]

The Yellow Pages still exist IRL. There was an interesting book I read some years back about the history of the phone book and it included some history behind the yellow pages.^1

The YP allowed an advertiser to pay for a larger type font, or a quarter/half/full page ad, in addition to the free listing. It is also divided into subject catgories.

What has been lost with Google's web search is the concept of the accessible free listing. It is only accesible under Google's secret rules. The ability to finger through the pages to get to, say, the last entry beginning with "Z" is not possible with Google search. Google will hide the bottom of the list and only display the first several pages. This creates pressure to buy ads or SEO services (game the search) in order to "appear at the top", which is "the only way to be found". Absurd. Google will not even return more than 400 results anymore.

While the phenomenon of naming things to begin with "A" may be seen in pratice outside of the web, this has not rendered the system of alphabetical listing obsolete.^2 Not even close. Also, there are likely other factors influencing the decision to name things beginning with letters like "A". As many computer nerds know, not all letters are equally common in the English language. Anyone who has looked at large zone files knows that domain names tend to begin with "A", but such choice of name is not done to game alphabetical ordering.

1. About 11 years ago I read a book by Ammon Shea called The Phone Book. It had some discussion of the history of the Yellow Pages.

2. Last year, Judith Flanders published a book on the history of alphabetical order.

[psd1]

It's not obvious to me what the bounds of "all websites" are.

The list of all phone numbers is obviously enumerable. There's a registry and a flat list of phone numbers. But, resource constraints aside, is it possible to enumerate all websites? I suppose you could theoretically enumerate every domain name, but that isn't necessarily the same thing.