Comparing Search Engines

In class yesterday, we asked the same three questions to three different search engines to see what happened.

First, the three search engines:

• Google.com. Enough said.
• Ask.com. Also pretty explanatory (the most recent version of AskJeeves.com), but I also find it mentionable that I keep hearing people say that it's gotten a lot better recently and has come into more favor.
• jux2.com I hadn't heard of this search engine before this practice question, so I'm glad I got some experience with it. Jux2.com states that it "Compare[s] Google, Yahoo, and MSN with One Search"

Then, the three questions:

• Khyber pass history
• Emily Dickinson biography
• moon tide change

For the Kyber pass question, all three sites first listed a very valuable website: the afghan-network. After that, both Google and jux2 listed Wikipedia, while ask.com listed world66.com. I would say Google and jux2 won this round.

Regarding Emily Dickinson's biography (children's librarian interruption: check out Emily Dickinson's Letters to the World by Jeanette Winter), the best site offered was online-lit.com. It was the first resource listed by Google and Ask. It was the 2nd link offered by jux2.com, which is still pretty good. jux2 listed cswnet.com first, which was just okay. Google offered biography.com second, which was great, and Ask offered uta.edu second, which was also great. I'm going with a tie between Google and Ask on this round.

As for the change in moon tides, the best link was theboatingexchange.com, which was offered by Jux2. But their 2nd link was completely irrelevant, and third link was wikipedia, which wasn't great, but was still possibly the best of what I compared. For the moon tide question, Google offered wikipedia first, and the Global Geophysical Fluids Center (GGFC) second, which is good, because both were highly relevant, so they could possibly be the winner, as well. In fact, I'm going with Google, because while it didn't have the best site, at least it's first few links were all relevant. Ask.com was way off target, supplying links to home.hiway.net first, which I wasn't sure made any sense at all, then to other possibly or definitely irrelevant sites following.

The point countdown:

Google: 3
Ask: 1
Jux2: 1

It could be bias, because I'm a Google girl, and this seemed to differ from the opinions of lots of my classmates, but that's Kristen's call, as I see it! I just really believe in those complicated algorithms and their corporate culture calling for seventy hour workweeks- it just seems like they know what they're doing.