The most relevant search engine
Admittedly a debatable topic. Interesting nonetheless. As we
know, search engines summarize contents of web-pages juxtaposed
by quantity and quality of incoming and outgoing links, in order
to arrive at relevance of a web-page. There may be other
considerations, like how old a domain is, whether the web-page
has resorted to any 'foul play', and so on, which are rather
more of subjective analysis (for the engines) than any real
concern to average users. To a viewer who queries search engines
for a given phrase, all that matters is the results that come up
ought to contain the most relevant content with respect to
search phrase.
The Search Engine Experiment
Given that, it will be interesting to know which search engine
brings up the most relevant results in response to search
queries. A free ready-to-use service - The Search Engine Experiment -
offered by WebMasterBrain attempts to answer this question. What
it does is simultaneously querying Google, Yahoo and MSN for a
search phrase you enter, and then fetching the 3 most relevant
answers for each of them. Names of engines are kept anonymous,
while you're asked to select which set of 3 answers best
corresponds to your expectation of relevancy. When you click
your choice, the answer is revealed immediately, and your
selection goes to add on to the tally of the search engine
chosen.
Critics may argue that the test is flawed. However, for all its
worth, it's a good pointer to determining relevancy of search
results. I used the service 3 times, and on 2 occasions the
answer turned out to be Yahoo, and Google once. I was a trifle
disappointed, for my favorite search engine is Google. But then
I appreciate that relevancy of search results and bias toward a
search engine do not always go hand-in-hand.
Google Heads Tally
According to WebMasterBrain, the aggregate tally
indicates a clear lead for Google (42.07%) over Yahoo (31.21%)
and MSN (26.72%) for the entire experiment period till date (20
Nov to 15 Dec, 2005; 15558 searches). Note that this test
doesn't convey that relevancy of search results would
automatically mean popularity of a search engine.
In this respect, it's worth referring to Danny Sullivan's
related findings. In his 2-part article, 'The End of Size Wars?',
Danny argues that quantum or count of search results is not
proof enough of comprehensiveness. Producing an assortment of
search information backed with logic, Danny propounds that no
engine can be considered god-sent to answer all search queries
with equal aplomb. Results vary from one to another, though for
one particular search query, he found "..Google slightly
more comprehensive than Yahoo!, but Yahoo! isn't bad and is
ahead of Ask and MSN."
How Worth It Is
Given an inherent arbitrariness, how worth it is to occupy a top
search result slot? To answer that, let's refer the research
work of Professor Thorsten Joachims and colleagues at Cornell
University, The Power of
Defaults. The research shows that as many as 42% of users
click on top search hit, and 8% click the second hit. Blame it
on gullibility of web users (as Prof. Joachims rightly feels) or
anything else, a top search position will remain a dream worth
chasing, relevancy notwithstanding.