Alternative Search Engines, Part 1

Elyse Sanchez, Friday, April 13, 2007 @ 9:26 am

Two days ago, Hitwise released statistics showing that Google accounted for 64% of all searches in March 2007. I would have assumed the percentage was higher, given the sheer ubiquity—and utility—of Google, whose name, like Xerox, has become synonymous with its function. The competition lagged far behind, with Yahoo search claiming 22%, MSN trailing with 9%, and Ask.com bringing up the rear with 3%. That’s 98% of all searches conducted during the period, and the significant factor is that all four of these search engines operate in essentially the same way, producing flat, one-dimensional lists of results.

Charles Knight, of Read/Write Web, writes a monthly article on the other 2%, offering his admittedly subjective lists of the Top 100 Alternative Search Engines. He’s careful to explain that these search engines are not to be considered head-to-head competitors to the multifunctional Google, but they make his list because they do perhaps a single aspect of search better than the behemoth. I decided to take a look at some of his picks.

In February 2007, Knight singled out GoshMe.com as “Search Engine of the Month,” praising it as “nothing short of amazing.” GoshMe is a meta-engine: enter your keyword, and GoshMe will sweep 2530 specialized and deep web search engines and offer them as results. Knight was pleased with the quantity of results, but I found several flaws in the quality. Although the site claims to rank results (presumably in terms of relevancy), the top result in my search for “cocker spaniel” was AdAge.com.

That engine did have a link to a story about cocker spaniels; however, it was 5^th out of 6 listed results. But the most critical weakness of GoshMe is its inability to perform an effective “and” search. Despite using quotation marks (I also tried a “+” sign) a search for “John Smith,” e.g., spewed out results for links to “John” or “Smith.” The application’s uncluttered interface is uncannily similar to Google’s, down to the link to “More” categories. GoshMe will search not only search engines, but images, audio, video, news, shopping, blogs and more. One of the nicer features is a “preview” link to a screen grab of the results sites.

Next time, a review of some “Recommendation Search Engines.”

user experience design

Comments: 1 so far

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1. 

   Ms. Sanchez (Elyse),

   Thank you for mentioning my “List.” Your comments about quantity vs. quality are well said and duly noted.

   The Top 100 Alternative Search Engines list is not only different every month, but it is better every month because feedback such as yours is never overlooked.

   Thanks again,

   Charles Knight
   Read/WriteWeb

   Comment by Charles Knight, Friday, April 13, 2007 @ 12:07 pm

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