DO you use one search engine for all your searching needs? I do. Unsurprisingly I use Google. My guess is that you do too. As do approximately 65% of internet users.
Why? What makes Google any better than Yahoo, Bing or Ask Jeeves?
To find out I decided to do a little test.
I ran a search of the word “Apple” on Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask Jeeves.
The above chart shows that Yahoo clearly lead the way in finding more webpages with “Apple” in them than Ask Jeeves, Bing and Google combined do. But is that a good thing? After all, who is going to sift through 1.63 billion webpages to find what they want? Then again nobody is going to do that with Ask Jeeves’ 55.6 million either, so the number of results is completely useless.
Gettin’ down to business
My guess is that most who use search engines usually find what they want on the first page of search results. Some will go two, maybe three pages deep, but it’s probably going to be single figures who go any deeper than that. So I’ll look at the first page…
Click to enlarge.
As you can see from the image on the right, a Google search for “Apple” brings up what it believes to be the most relevant matches first.
There’s one ad, for the Apple Store. The first proper search result is the Apple UK homepage, which I’d say is pretty relevant given that I’m in the UK. The second result is the US Apple homepage, with the third being the US Apple Store. So far so good. What you cannot see is below this third search result – a selection of Google News results for “Apple”. Then there’s the Wikipedia article on the fruit apple, then an Apple Agency result, then the Apple Developer Connection result. After that there’s Apple’s financial performances from Yahoo, then the Apple Livepage page (the default start page in Safari for new Apple Mac users) and finally the Apple portal on Slashdot.
Click to enlarge.
Next up is Yahoo. If you look at the image on the right (click to enlarge it) you will see the following:
There’s a sponsored advert at the top which is pretty much the same as the one on Google. The first proper search result is the Apple UK website, and the second is the European Apple website. The third is the US Apple Store, and the fourth is the UK Apple Store. Next up is the Apple, Inc. Wikipedia article, then a Wikipedia article on the Apple II series, and then the Apple support website. To round off the first page is the Apple Illustration website, the Apple India website, and the Apple page on Gizmodo. At the very bottom there are two text ads – one for Woolworths Apple products, and the other for some video converter.
Click to enlarge.
Now for Bing. First up is the same sponsored ad found on Google and Yahoo. The first proper search result is the Apple UK website, then the US Apple website. Third up is the Apple Developer Connection, and the fourth search result is the Apple Developer Connection Worldwide Developers Conference 2009 website. Next up is the US Student Discount Apple Store website, and then there’s the Apple Livepage. After that is the official Apple Support Forums, then the Apple Support website. The last two are the Apple US Back to School Store promo, and the Apple Certification Programs website.
Click to enlarge.
Finally it’s time for Ask Jeeves. First up there are two sponsored ads – the same Apple UK Store ad found on Google, Yahoo and Bing, and then there’s a Woolworths UK Apple products ad. The first proper search is the UK Apple website, and then the US Apple website. After that there are a few news article searches, and then the Apple Developer Connection website. After that comes the fruit apple Wikipedia article, and then the US Apple iPhone website, closely followed by the yourmobilephonereviews.co.uk iPhone review site and the mobiledia.com website. Finally there’s the phonescoop.com website. There are the same two ads at the bottom as were found at the top.
So what were the differences?
I’ve got to admit that Yahoo’s seemed the most relevant when taking the entire first page into account. All four returned their results incredibly quickly, so there’s no issue with speed. Google and Ask Jeeves returned some news articles, which was handy.
Perhaps the least relevant search came from Ask Jeeves who threw a few mobile phone review websites in the mix despite me just searching for “Apple”. Not exactly what I was after.
If I were to rank them in order of how relevant they are, from most to least, it would look like this:
1.) Yahoo
2.) Google
3.) Bing
4.) Ask Jeeves.
So I’m still left asking myself the question “why do I always, unfailingly, use Google?” It clearly isn’t because it produces better search results, because by and large the big four are all pretty much the same give or take the odd website.
Maybe it’s the way the sites appear on my screen.
Google looks clean, neat and tidy. Its main search page has zero ads, is mostly white spaces and the text is nice and simple.
Yahoo is a mess. It has flash adverts, links all over the show, not to mention categories and other nonsense. When I want to search I just want to search. I don’t want the other nonsense.
Bing is, I must admit, a breath of fresh air. The search box is easy to locate and the background photograph is usually a pretty impressive one. No ads, no nonsense, it looks great, if a little distracting.
Like Google, Ask Jeeves is clean, neat and tidy, and most importantly, it’s simple to use. Jeeves presents a clickable question of the day above the search box, and the search box is not amidst a load of clutter.
If I were to rank them in order of how appealing they are to look at, it would look like this:
1.) Google
2.) Ask Jeeves
3.) Bing
4.) Yahoo.
Hmm… so Yahoo is the best for results but the worst to look at. Bing has so far come a steady third place in both rankings.
But then I’m going to throw a spanner in the works here by saying that I use Firefox, and as such I don’t ever have to look at the main page of any of those search engines, for Firefox comes with a search bar built in. A quick click and I can choose from Google, Yahoo, Bing or Ask Jeeves (Bing and Ask Jeeves can only be used by installing addons). I very rarely go to google.com to search as I do it through the search bar in Firefox. All it takes is a click and I can select whatever search engine I want to use. It’s effortless.
There must be a reason why I use Google dammit! It’s not ease of use because as I said above it’s effortless to switch to another search engine in my Firefox search bar.
Maybe it is because I have used Google for the best part of a decade. But then a decade ago I was using Internet Explorer, Winamp, Windows 98 and Napster. Now I’m using Firefox, iTunes, OS X and Windows Vista/Windows 7 and iTunes Music Store. See? I’m not resistant to change. Recently I even ditched Safari for Firefox because it’s better. I ditched the Nokia N95 for the iPhone. I ditched ordinary Sky Digital for Sky+. I ditched a Peugeot 106 for a Volkswagen Passat. Change for the better is good.
So let us return to the rankings I made earlier. Let us say for arguments sake that 1st place gets 4 points, 2nd place 3 points, 3rd place 2 points and 4th place 1 point. The rankings will look like this:
1.) Google (7 points)
2.) Yahoo (5 points)
3.) Bing (4 points)
4.) Ask Jeeves (4 points).
Ergo, Google wins. Is it really that simple? Do I use Google simply because the front page seems more relevant and because the main page I never use looks better? How fickle I must be.
But I don’t believe that, not for one moment.
Consider this… Yahoo are currently redesigning their main page to make it more appealing and what not. Therefore, if Yahoo continues to pump out more relevant searches and looks two points better it’ll tie with Google in my ranking, which is frankly a load of rubbish because in reality I never use Yahoo.
Having thought long and hard above all of the above I was still unable to come to a solid conclusion. I guess Google just feels like home. I cannot sum it up any other way. It just seems to trigger the right chemical response in my brain, whereas Yahoo doesn’t.
Ah well, sorry for wasting your time reading the above. If I did one thing though, I hope I got you to think about why you use the search engine you use. After all, there’s a reason why you do.
