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Google or Wikipedia - Which is Your First Stop?
dwarfking asks: "Over the last several months I have noticed that more and more often, when I am searching for information on the web, I find myself starting at Wikipedia instead of Google. It used to be that the first hit on many of my Google searches linked to Wikipedia articles, so I started going there first. I've found that except for searching for current events, by starting with Wikipedia I get a good explanation of the topic of interest and the pages generally have links to other good resources that are right on topic (without the need to scroll through dozens of hits). Are others of you seeing similar shifts in your search usage and if so, do any of you think this could become a trend for the larger community? If so, then what could that potentially mean for Google?"
Although Wikipedia is certainly a top ranking search engine result for many subjects, it is certainly not an exhaustive resource. It's an encyclopedia. As such, I find that when I search google that sooner or later (usually 1 - 3 tries) I find keywords that give some sort of appropriate results. If I am searching for specific subjects that I know may be found in an encyclopedia, I start with google again and search "site:wikipedia.org somesubject" or even "wikipedia somesubject". The latter search is because many people will have an informative page on their own website with more/different information than wikipedia, but they will reference wikipedia for some of their text.
Good question, but personally I still always start with google. Unless I'm simply in wikipedia research mode, then I can sit for hours in front of the thing going from one article to the next...
Funnypics
If the Wikipedia entry is worthwhile (believe it or not, sometimes it isn't), it'll be listed first in your search. Best of both worlds.
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
I usually start with google and make sure I have the right spelling, then the appropriate Wikipedia article is one of the first links, so I click on that.
To me it's not really an either/or situation, plus Wikipedia can be very lacking in some areas, especially current events or information about more specialised fields.
I'd say Wikipedia and Google are safe from each other (though leaning more towards Wikipedia, since Google often sends you there anyway).
You can learn a lot about a person if you just take the time to inject them with sodium pentathol
This is a moot point.
I'm being serious. Google is supposed to tell you where to find what you're looking for, like the catalog computer in a library that tells you exactly which shelf to go to, whereas Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, an indiviual book in the library. Comparing the two is IMHO completely pointless.
Don't you just hate it when people reply to your signature?
I do both at once!
With a Firefox extension called Googlepedia, I "Google" happily, and it'll include (if found) a relevant Wikipedia page to the side of the search results.
I switched to Ask.com for searches about six months ago. Their first results page generally contains:
First: either a WIkipedia link or a link to the "official" site, depending on what you searched for. Ask is good at identifying the nature of the search.
Second: about 10 relevant links, with no junk, no ad site, no sales sites.
The downside is that Ask's advertising links are rather obtrusive; they put them at the top and bottom of the page, with a subtly different background color.
My switch from Google was based on a combination of performance and politics: I don't really miss it.
Googlepedia link
Google is still the first place I go for most of my queries. However, I find myself going to Wikipedia first when I want an overview of a topic and I know I've got a good keyword to get to it. And often when I'm using Google, the first article I look at is the Wikipedia entry.
Where my usage has really changed is when my first choice of keywords for Google leads to too many wrong responses (too much verbiage about Paris Hilton when looking for hotels in Paris). When this happens I now often look for a Wikipedia article to scan for better keywords to feed to Google. This is a very slick way of quickly narrowing the scope of the search.
Google is incredible. Who would have guessed that searching with "30 mi + 10 km = ? leagues" would get an answer?
If I want some sort of traditional reference material, the first best stop for me is http://answers.com/.
If I'm looking for almost anything else, I go directly to http://google.com/.
RHCE; are you certified? Karma: ambiguous.
The problem with Google these days, is if you search for ANYTHING that can be purchased, almost all of the hit results will be for places selling that thing with a handful of actually relevent hits randomly stewn in between.
I was searching for data on "USB Mass Storage support in Windows 98" - That was a mistake; Pretty much ALL the hits were for the selling ofr USB Flash drives, with a couple of informational hits, which had nothing to do with Win98.
Google's search quality was extremely good when it first came out, esp. compared to its primary rivals at the time (Altavista/Yahoo), but as it's risen to the top, it's basically been hacked.
The search quality is now as bad as Yahoo and Altavista's used to be, when they were the premiere search engines in the old Modem-days.
IMHO, all sales-related hits should be shucked into Froogle; That alone would clear up the search results substantially.
Try searching for paris -hilton...
Ta-Dah!
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=paris+-hilton&sta rt=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
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