Search Engine Shoot Out

Its that time again. Time to check out the various search engines and see if Google.com has any serious competitors. Now, does that sound like I have an attitude? Oh, probably. Like usual.

Here's the rules of the game. I use my standard search term, my Great-grandfather, Henry Martin Tanner as the basis for comparison. I also check the Alexa standings and some online rating services, to see what the rest of the world thinks. What is my criteria? I assume, probably correctly by the way, that a search engine is supposed to search. But in addition, I further assume that it is supposed to find stuff. So why do I use my Great-grandfather as a search term? Because I have been using his name as an example now for a few years and I have a pretty good feel for how many different websites there are out there that have mentioned or featured his name. Therefore, if the search engine can't find what I know is there, I won't waste my time trying to use it to find things I don't know.  Not a perfect system, but better than some.

OK, off to high noon on the Internet.

Here is the Alexa.com ranking for several search engines. Alexa ratings change almost every day depending on the traffic measured, so your results may vary, as they say. This time I am throwing in the genealogy search engine Mocavo.com to see how it is progressing. If you want to see a huge list of search engines, go to Wikipedia:List of search engines. My selections are entirely arbitrary and capricious. You might notice that I include some popular ones, some metasearch engines like Dogpile. Some of the search engines I used to compare have disappeared or been absorbed into larger ones. The ranking is first the world and then the U.S.

Google.com Number 1 and 1
Bing.com Number 26 and 15
Ask.com Number 51 and 33
Yahoo! Number 4 and 4
About.com Number 68 and 36
Dogpile  Number 3,761 and 1,071
mywebsearch.com Number 126 and 54
Lycos.com Number 1,629 and 746
Mocavo.com Number  79,586 and 14,192
Aol.com Number 62 and 18

They all have very respectable figures. Mocavo.com is definitely growing. So what about the rankings online? Well, it turns out that most of them are based on the Alexa.com rankings so the list is redundant, but here they are in order:

Google.com
Bing.com
Yahoo!
Ask.com
Aol.com
mywebsearch.com
Lycos.com
Dogpile 
About.com
Mocavo.com

Of course, I have left off your favorite. But that's life. You can always tout your own favorite in a comment.

Here goes the search comparison of the known subject: Henry Martin Tanner. For this search I will add the term "arizona" to give a somewhat more focused search. If you like, you can dig back in my blog archives and find my previous comparisons, but, of course they are woefully out of date.

I will do an exact search in each search engine and give the number of results.

Google.com Total 3,010
Bing.com Total 26
Yahoo! Total 26
Ask.com No total given but about 30
Aol.com Total 2,960
mywebsearch.com Total 128
Lycos.com Total 26
Dogpile  Total 84
About.com Total 0
Mocavo.com Total 710

I have to admit that the search was rigged. I already have a very good idea of how many websites contain a reference to my Great-grandfather. I have done this search as a demo so many times I am pretty confident that Google.com has the closest number. Aol.com did very well and is ranked right up there with Google actually, and Mocavo.com is moving up in the world and should be looked at. The rest fail miserably. In doing an online name search, they just aren't worth the effort.

Will Mocavo.com keep moving up in the genealogical search world? I am convinced it will. Will I start using AOL? Not likely unless there is some way to get rid of their offensive ads.  Will any of the other companies figure out how to do websearches? There is always hope. Hint: There is a good reason why Google is number one.