Comments on: Battle of the Search Engines

By: Gerry White

Gerry White — Thu, 21 May 2009 13:03:06 +0000

Love this post!

I am an SEO guy, but if I wasn’t – would I care how the results came from, only if it answered my question. Google has too much of an monopoly and as someone else said, it would be a long time before anyone else can catch up -I was privately hedging my bets on Ask, but as thats my default SE in Google it hasn’t yet impressed me …

What did Woflram Alpha think …

By: The Janitor

The Janitor — Sat, 09 May 2009 22:58:19 +0000

Bottom line is a user explicitly declared what they wanted and only one search engine was able to put the answer above all else: ask.com

Nice Job Microsoft, pity about the ad and dont forget the importance of algo.

Matt, before pointing the finger at Microsoft for the hard-coding, did Google really do everything they possibly could, or is it still okay to say it was the computers fault, but we weren’t as guilty as the rest?

Yahoo… lift your game or I’ll be taking you out with the trash.

By: Mark - Search Engine Optimisation Melbourne

Mark - Search Engine Optimisation Melbourne — Wed, 06 May 2009 03:12:46 +0000

That’s an interesting point. I’ve noticed that often when I search Google for technical queries I get results from 2002-2004. I like that Google gives more weight to information from older sites, but I’d like to see more up-to-date technical, news and pop-culture information.
Perhaps old sites + fresh content = relevant results?

Good on Live Search for thinking outside the box (or inside the One Box as Matt points out), but with such a low market share not many people will get to use it.

By: Computer Consultant

Computer Consultant — Tue, 05 May 2009 14:19:37 +0000

Interesting comparison, but the Google is still viewed as “the best” search engine and therefore most popular one. It will take years for another engine to overtake Google.

By: Rick

Rick — Tue, 05 May 2009 11:09:02 +0000

Hi Matt, thanks for stopping by.

You bring up an interesting point that puzzled me and caused pause in my analysis. From what you’re saying, the ‘one box’ is not a part of anyone’s algorithmic/crawled search results. I was not aware that the ‘one box’ was a manual process/placeholder where a search engine can place relevant/timely data such as sporting events, award shows, or other hot topics from current events. Does Google plan to offer this functionality in the near future?

Based upon the user experience and finding an answer to my question as quickly as possible, I have to stand by my original decision and go with Microsoft & Ask.com.

Based upon algorithmic/crawled results Google clearly wins!

-Rick

By: Matt Cutts

Matt Cutts — Tue, 05 May 2009 05:18:40 +0000

Interesting, but looking at the images above, neither Ask nor Microsoft appear to have the answer in their algorithmic/crawled search results. Instead, both search engines appear to have hard-coded “one box” results above their regular search results. I give credit to Microsoft and Ask for creating “one box” results manually for this sporting event, but if you judged purely by the algorithmic/crawled results, Google had the answer earliest, according to these snapshots.

Also, both Ask and Microsoft appear to have off-topic ads; why is a domain name ad showing for a Kentucky Derby query?.