Interestingly, that was the idea I distinctly remember from the dinner party: someone suggested the only fix for Internet searches was to implement something like AOL Keywords globally. A central registry of keywords.
What would you be trying to "fix" here? More often than not, the first result for a given query on most common search engines is the correct, authoritative source for something. If I search for a company, the company's official website is nearly always the first real result.
The only thing I think is really wrong with search (and all major search engines right now are guilty of this) is making paid ads look very similar to real results, which makes it possible to pay to hijack a result.
