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BBC Magazine's Search-Engine Shootout

Posted by timothy on from the asanine-suggestions-from-jeeves-the-idiot-butler dept.

An anonymous reader writes "On BBC Online's excellent Magazine, there is a shootout between Google, MSN, Yahoo! and Ask Jeeves. Search tests were conducted on five criteria: an obscure fact; multiple meanings of "raleigh"; speed; and current time in Sydney. Yahoo! is the fastest of the lot. Google has the cleanest interface. MSN Search fared worst of all. Jeeves is the apparent winner for features like related search. (Author claims to be a Google nut.)" This may be the nicest thing anyone's ever said about Jeeves.

4 of 187 comments (clear)

  1. How long until relevance engines are commodities? by Ars-Fartsica · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Within the next two years max. That spells trouble for Google and its shareholders, who still place a very high premium on what is quickly becoming a common service. Fortunately for Google insiders, they should be able to cash out long before the regular dopes in investorland figure this out.

  2. Something I can say about Jeeves.... by th3space · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It helped me track down a couple of old friends, even when all others had failed. To be fair, it was the last one that I had turned to - I'd even tried dogpile and lycos before that.

    --
    "How like you to drag your keyboard to a gun fight." - Aaron Bedard (BANE)
  3. Google? Not anymore by TheLibero · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Well, I started to find Google exteremely furstrating now. Whenever I try to serach for documents/specifications/data sheets of a certain protocol or an idea that has a large commercial use, google would send you pages, and pages, and pages of products that matched these keywords. It's very obvious that companies are buying these keywords. Thus, they have higher priorities on our first few pages in the search results.

    --
    "Evil thrives when good men do nothing"
  4. Actually, Ask Jeeves is kinda interesting by Jugalator · · Score: 3, Interesting

    These are the searches I made in order and nothing cut out except for the cases where a question didn't give anything on page 1 for either of the engines.

    Who created Slashdot?

    Ask Jeeves: CmdrTaco as #1 (correct answer)
    Google: CmdrTaco as #4

    Who designed Ford?

    Ask Jeeves: Henry Ford Academy as #1 (HF is correct)
    Google: Nothing about Henry Ford on first page

    What wavelength is red?

    Ask Jeeves: 622-780 nm from search result description of #1
    Google: "about 650 nm" if you follow link and read on in the page of #1

    Sometimes we see negative side effects from this question system...

    Where can I download Nero?

    Ask Jeeves: First links to download service that did indeed have Nero as a download, but versions from 2000. Ahead.de as #3
    Google: Ahead.de as #2 (a completely unrelated site as #1)

    I tried to refine... :-)

    Where can I download the latest version of Nero?

    Ask Jeeves: Got confused, but finally got the proper link (official download page) as #8
    Google: Nero 6.6.0.1 (correct!) at unofficial site as #1, official site as #2.

    Do SCO have a case? :-)

    Ask Jeeves: Groklaw.net as #1
    Google: NewsForge analysing article as #1 and other SCO related news articles.

    When do Revenge of the Sith have its premiere?

    Ask Jeeves: "has its worldwide premiere on May 19, 2005" according to search result description for #2.
    Google: Nothing in search result descriptions, and nothing I could find by following a few search result links on page 1.

    --
    Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!