Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Objectively Comparing Competing Search Engines?

Posted by Cliff on from the oogling-others-against-google dept.

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?"

5 of 405 comments (clear)

  1. I tried others...but I never changed my home page by nsasch · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I open my browser, and see the Google page up and running. I started with Yahoo, I tried meta search engines, altavista, a9, and many others, but I never change my home page to be the other ones. I know Google, I know how to use the results and to view pages all in HTML and to get the cache and to search sites that link to me, or search a specific site. It's easy in the other sites, but I already figured Google out. Google works for me, when I find the wrong thing, I just add "-wrongword" to the end and I find what I need. I see all the blogs and misindexed pages, but I've never really suffered from Google Bombing or any of the other problems that are mentioned.

    --
    Make your computer faster: rm -rf /mnt/windows/
  2. Teoma by xzap · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Teoma has this great feature called Related search which is very useful. Basically if you look for a particular topic, the search engine identifies all related topics and offers you a one click access to all of them. Makes the search equally usable for both a rookie and a domain expert using the same search term.

  3. Presentation by dwcasey · · Score: 4, Interesting

    One thing I like about askjeeves and a9.com is the way the present the search results. I think the next step is to improve on the presentation of the results (data) to make it more usable/accessable. Hit up askjeeves and run a search. The preview feature is pretty nice. And check out a9.com searches with their Site Info mouse-over.

  4. Here's a nice comparison by Zordok · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I got this from a friend who works at yahoo...

    http://www.langreiter.com/exec/yahoo-vs-google.htm l
    Sorry if it gets slashdotted.

  5. Re:Dont bother by aconbere · · Score: 5, Interesting

    While I'm sure you had good intentions when posting this I decided to do my own little research (just to see what the other search engines returned) and I got rather different information that you did.

    These are the top 4 results for "Why are Flamingos Pink?" (entered without quotation marks) in the top 3 search engine providers Yahoo!, MSN, and Google.

    Yahoo!

    http://www.finelinefeatures.com/pink/
    http://www.shopping.com/xGS-Pink_Flamingos~FD-113~ NS-1~linkin_id-3058014
    http://www.thewildones.org/Animals/flamingo.html Contains Answer
    http://www.overstock.com/cgi-bin/d2.cgi?cid=48422& PAGE=PRODUCT&PROD_ID=962864&fp=F

    MSN

    http://199.216.204.14/project04/legends2004/why_fl amingos_are_pink.htm
    http://home.nycap.rr.com/useless/pink_flamingo/
    http://www.cat1234.com/id56.htm
    http://www.straightdope.com/columns/010518.html Contains Answer

    Google

    http://www.straightdope.com/columns/010518.html Contains Answer
    http://www.thewildones.org/Animals/flamingo.html Contains Answer
    http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060 000244/104-8146884-9815145?v=glance Sells Answer
    http://webexhibits.org/causesofcolor/7.html Contains Answer

    As we can see... google out preforms all three, offering 3 sites that actualy contain the answer in the top 4 results, two of which are in the top two. CLEARLY providing better results on at least this topic than either Yahoo or MSN.

    Anders