The Search Engine Showdown


The Search Engine Showdown

 by: Courtney Heard

If you're anything like me, you have a favourite search engine and you're loyal to it. You never use any others (which made this research difficult for yours truly), insist yours is the be-all and end-all and you even go so far as to deny any shortcomings it may have. But is your search engine truly the best? Inspired by a great article at the BBC News (BBC News: Search Wars), we decided to compare the major search engines. Here's what we found.

We chose the search term "real estate fiji" because it's a competitive industry and geographically specific. We also searched with the same phrase, misspelled to see if the search engine would suggest the correct spelling.

Google

  • Initially loading the search page for Google is lightning fast.

  • The look is clean and easy to understand.

  • Search time was 0.15 seconds.

  • The search yielded 1,190,000 results.

  • All results on the first page were relevant.

  • Spellcheck was available.

Yahoo!

  • Initially loading the search page for Yahoo! is a little bit slower than Google, but still fast.

  • Search time was 0.18 seconds.

  • The search yielded 711,000 results.

  • It is difficult to tell the sponsored links from the actual web results.

  • All results on the first page were relevant, however one of them directed you to another set of results for your search at DMOZ.org.

  • Spellcheck was available.

AskJeeves

  • Initially loading the search page for AskJeeves is fast.

  • Search time was not posted and was much slower than Google & Yahoo!.

  • The search yielded 63,100 results.

  • Sponsored links take up the whole screen. You have to scroll down to see the web results.

  • All first page results were relevant.

  • Spellcheck was available.

A9.com

  • Initially loading the search page for A9 is fast.

  • Search time was not posted but was average.

  • The search yielded 209,000 results.

  • All the results on the first page were relevant.

  • There were image results alongside the text results. This could be helpful.

  • Spellcheck was available.

MSN

  • Initially loading the search page for MSN is fast.

  • Search time was not posted but was average.

  • The search yielded 112,607 results.

  • All except one of the results were relevant. This result pointed to Philippines real estate. Also, one the results directed you to DMOZ, where a second search for your keywords is performed.

  • Spellcheck was available.

Alexa

  • Initially loading the search page for Alexa was fast.

  • Search time was not posted but was somewhat slow.

  • The search yielded 208,000 results.

  • It was difficult to tell the sponsored results from the web results.

  • Some results included screen shots.

  • The look was kind of disorganized.

  • Spellcheck was available.

AltaVista

  • Initially loading the search page for AltaVista is fast.

  • Search time was not posted but was a sliver slower than Google.

  • The search yielded 736,000 results.

  • The sponsored results take up almost the entire screen. You have to scroll to get to the good stuff.

  • The results are all relevant, though one redirects you to DMOZ, where a second search for your keywords is performed.

  • Spellcheck was available.

Lycos

  • Initially loading the search page for Lycos is fast.

  • Search time was not posted but was rather slow.

  • The search yielded 114,356 results.

  • The sponsored results take up almost the entire screen. Once again, you have to scroll to get to the good stuff.

  • All the results are relevant although 2 of them redirect you to DMOZ.org.

  • Spellcheck was available.

Excite

  • Initially loading the search page for Excite is slow.

  • Search time was not posted but was rather slow.

  • The search yielded 114,356 results.

  • All the results on the first page were relevant.

  • The look of the site was clean.

  • Spellcheck was available.

HotBot

  • Initially loading the search page for HotBot is fast.

  • Search time was not posted but was fast.

  • The search yielded 114,389 results.

  • The sponsored results take up almost the entire screen. Once again, you have to scroll to get to the good stuff.

  • All the results are relevant although 1 of them redirects you to DMOZ.org.

  • Spellcheck was available.

AllTheWeb

  • Initially loading the search page for AllTheWeb is fast.

  • Search time was not posted, but was fast.

  • The search yielded 679,000 results.

  • It is difficult to tell the sponsored results from the web results.

  • An offensive content filter was available.

  • All the results are relevant although 1 of them redirects you to DMOZ.org.

  • Spellcheck was not available.

Looksmart

  • Initially loading the search page for Looksmart is fast.

  • Search time was not posted but was rather slow.

  • The search yielded 300 results.

  • There were 3 completely irrelevant results on the first page.

  • The look of the site was clean.

  • Spellcheck was not available.

Jayde

  • Initially loading the search page for Jayde is somewhat slow.

  • Search time was not posted but was average.

  • The search yielded 60,424 results.

  • There were quite a few irrelevant results.

  • The look of the site was clean.

  • Spellcheck was not available.

So, what's the conclusion? My favorite search engine is the best. All hail Google!... Alright, alright, some of the others are pretty cool, too.

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