The Search Engine Showdown

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.

Courtney Heard is the founder of Abalone Designs, an Internet Marketing and SEO company in Vancouver, Canada. She has been involved in web development and marketing since 1995 and has helped start several businesses since then in the Vancouver area. More of Courtney's articles are available at http://www.abalone.ca/resources/.

---

Anatomy Of A Top Ranking Web page

Optimizing web pages for high rankings in the search engines... Read More

Banned from Google and Wondering Why?

There are those that get on the computer one night... Read More

Sales And Crawlers, Update! Update! Update!

The importance to the algorithmic web crawlers that speed throughout... Read More

How to Choose Keywords to Theme Your Pages and Boost Your Traffic

One of the most frequent questions I get asked is... Read More

Google Rankings -- Achieve Top 10 Rankings with Free Tools

In order to get a top 10 google ranking it... Read More

Is Something Missing From Your Keywords Research? (Part 1)

As you may already know, keywords are an essential part... Read More

What is Your Sales Message?

So you built a website, you have a product, but... Read More

Meta Tags - An Important Part of Every Web Page

Meta tags are an absolute must from a search engine... Read More

Guide to Search Engine Optimization

What is Search Engine Optimization?Search Engine Optimization or SEO for... Read More

Ten Steps To A Well Optimized Website - Step 4: Content Optimization

Welcome to part four in this search engine positioning series.... Read More

How to Get a Website Indexed Fast

Get Indexed FastWhat does getting indexed mean?The search engines keep... Read More

How and When Should I Submit My Website to Google?

As soon as you register your domain name, submit it... Read More

Is Page Not Found Making Google Tell The World Site Not Found?

Search Engines are hard to tame, that's for sure. But... Read More

1 Simple SEO Strategy To Get More Visitors To Your Site From Google

Did you know that you can dramatically increase the number... Read More

KEI Concerns and CID Alternative

Like many folks, I have been using KEI for some... Read More

SEO #2: On-page Optimization

Yesterday you should have read the first course out of... Read More

How to Make More Money with Your Mambo 4.5.1 Site

For those of you who are not familiar... Read More

How and Why to Avoid the SEO Mania

The WhyBut what is the reality of reaching a number... Read More

Surviving Googles Aging Delay

Google has always been the search industry's innovator and that's... Read More

Work With The Search Engines - Dont try to Outsmart the Search Engines

Contrary to the claims of high-priced SEO firms, optimizing your... Read More

Google Website and Web Page Indexing for Dummies

You may have heard how important it is to have... Read More

SEO and Google Indexing - Why It Requires A Complex Blend of Skills

If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. Getting... Read More

A Classified Way To Drive Business To Your Web Site

There are more than 105 million of them in the... Read More

Keywords, Choose Them Wisely

By now you have likely heard that keywords and keyword... Read More

10 Ways to Make Sure Your SEO Goes Out of Its Way for You

If they want to have success, companies should do everything... Read More

Site Maps: Let Search Engines Find Your Pages

With 40 million websites in existence, and more than 3... Read More

When to Hire a Professional SEO Firm?

In efforts to increase sales and profitability, more and more... Read More

7 Steps to Highly Relevant, Search Engine Friendly, and People Useful Web Site Content

The task is to build a Content Rich Search Friendly... Read More

SEO Trade Secrets - 8 Great Tools for Search Engine Optimization

About 80% of website traffic comes through search engines. And... Read More

Good Content: The Key To Search Engine Ranking

Good Content: The Key To Search Engine RankingWhat drives visitors... Read More

Search Engine Copywriting: Focus on One Topic

Perhaps the simplest of all the lessons I have learned... Read More

Website Optimization, Good Overall Optimization is Key

Good overall optimization, the right keyword phrases and quality content... Read More

Tread Towards A Successful ?Internet Research?

Internet is a terrific resource containing billions of web pages... Read More