> Actually it's probably a LOT easier
Can you support that claim?
Just the scale alone is mind boggling when it comes to search.
Then throw in natural language processing, contextual signals, hubs and authorities, content categorization (which grows ever closer to looking like actual understanding), machine learning, a host of other basic and ever evolving quality signals that exist both in and inter-dependently of one another, the more complex signals that arise from the above and on and on.
Search is hard. Even the most casual of Googling (or maybe Binging would be apt in this case) will provide you with endless info about how hard it is.