Objectively Comparing Competing Search Engines?

aendeuryu asks: "My default search engine of choice is, like most of you I assume, Google. That said, some complaints about Google over the years do seem to have some merit -- basically, that sometimes the indices aren't always updated, that it's too easy to manipulate via googlebombing or legislation, and that maybe too many of its featured services never get out of beta stage. Maybe the fact that Google has gone so long without significant competition is enough to make one at least begin to ask questions about it possibly becoming stagnant. Personally, I'm so used to doing things the Google way (and achieving acceptable results quickly) that I'm not really interested in switching -- case in point, all the above links referenced were quickly found via Google. However, what am I missing out on by not giving (for example) Yahoo search a shot? Or, more to the point, how would one go about trying to effectively and objectively compare competing search engines? In what areas have people found Google to have become obsolete for their purposes? Have less ignorant people than myself figured out ways to test a competing search engine's efficacy for themselves?"

Comments

Dont bother

[nb caffeine]

If you know how to use google to achieve your results, whats the issue? If a better search comes along, im sure it will be posted on slashdot (twice), so you dont need to worry about missing out.

Subjective

[fembots]

I think you have said it already, Google is good for returning acceptable results quickly, but acceptability is something very subjective.

Even by comparing keyword search side by side, one can still consider a worse result better, but who's to judge except the user?

I kept using Yahoo until it's not giving me results that I think are good enough, then I switched to Google, and I'll keep using Google until it's not returning good enough result.

Punctuation

[Daetrin]

If in the process of comparison you find a search engine that can actually handle punctuation please let me know. Altavista used to be able to do it, but sometime in the last few years in the process of "competing" with google they dropped the feature.

I _used_ to go to altavista everytime i had a search that involved specific punctuation, usually some kind of coding question. Now i just get frustrated with google while trying to find some related term i can add in that will give me the results i want.

Why Google works

[onyxruby]

OK, here it, why Google has become king.

1. Simple interface, quickly loads.
2. No graphical Ads
3. Paid results are clearly ads and seperated from real results.

That's it, that's why Google is king. Until Yahoo, MSN search, Ask Jeeves and the like get those three points, they will continue to be second fiddle.

One way to test

[mcguyver]

I usually test search engines by typing in popular keywords that spammers generally go after, ex:

phentermine
home loans
poker
mesothelioma
viagra
miserable failure

Then look at the sites that rank at the top. It's very easy to tell which search engines are more succeptible to manipulation. A quick look at the backlinks for sites favorably ranking in those competitive keywords tells you how that SE is doing.

Here's my opinion on the race between Google, Yahoo & MSN. Google has more sites that are authorities in the top results and Google penalizes over optimization however extreme examples of over optimization continue to show up in Google. Yahoo is a moderate success and does a fair job of filtering out spammy sites as well as authorities like wikipedia - wikipedia will always rise to the top in G but not in Y - and this is good for Y because you get more variety. MSN does an average job of filtering out blog spam but new sites are too favorably ranked and this is because MSN is new and has no recorded history of URLs. My personal preference is to use G simply because it loads the fastest in my browser... Maybe it's also worth pointing out that my company has several URLs ranked favorably in the terms listed above - looking at the change in rankings over time certainly helps give insight into which SE is better. MSN & Y are by far easier to manipulate than G but G gives the most traffic.

Re:Dont bother - why? Parallel to OS Wars

[drhamad]

I know how to use Windows to achieve the necessary results better than the Mac or Linux. Does that means I should never try to use the Mac or Linux? Does that mean that I won't achieve better results if I learn to properly use the Mac or Linux?

Re:Questions

[Yurian]

An excellent question-answering engine is BrainBoost.. It's currently slow, but damn impressive sometimes.

The other day I needed to know, for obscure reasons, the number of heroin addicts in Dublin. This is the kind of info that you know is probably on the web, but is going to be hard to find with Google.

I used BrainBoost - "How many heroin addicts are there in Dublin?", and, bam, first line of the result - "There are 13,000 heroin addicts in Dublin."

That's damn impressive. Out of curiosity I tried to see if I could find the same info with Google - it was fairly tough. Took three or four searches, eventually resorting to

"there are * heroin" Dublin

which is a fairly specialized search that average users probably wouldn't be able to construct. The BrainBoost search, on the other hand, was completely natural, my granma could have done it.

So, thumbs up for BrainBoost for question answering.

Still, it's not the kind of thing you'll want every day. For day-to-day search, Google is the tool, but BB is worth a look.