Here is an idea for improving Google.  With each search, display a side column of topics related words in the query as well as general topics.  For example, searching for 'ivory' should bring up topics like 'Soap', 'Color', and 'Animal' as well as 'Company', 'Product', 'Geography', 'History', etc.  Clicking on a topic will change the query to filter by topic.  Search result click-through feedback is used to associate links with topics.  A fringe benefit is that adwords can be mixed into with the topic column to grab eyeballs.