
Google vs. Yahoo vs. Bing. Most results are virtually identical. - zeedotme
http://thenextweb.com/2009/06/07/google-yahoo-bing-results-virtually-identical-google-wins/
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alex_c
From the blind test site:

Google: 45%, Bing: 33%, Yahoo: 22% | 9,496 votes

While they're all the same order of magnitude, I wouldn't call that "virtually
identical"...

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zeedotme
agreed, in fact i changed the title to "almost identical". Did you try a few
searches, what were they like?

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pmjordan
You can often tell which one is Google from prominent Wikipedia results.

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ricree
When I tried the comparison, all three tended to have wikipedia pretty high in
the rankings.

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enomar
Search results are important, but they aren't the _only_ thing that matters
here.

Which one is faster? Which has a better UX? Which should trust with my data?
Which integrates with other products I like? Which one works best on my phone?
...

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whughes
I'd argue that search results trump many of these. The UIs (including mobile
UIs) of most search engines these days are virtually identical, although maybe
slightly flashier in some cases. No Cuil here. If a search engine offers
better results but is a little slower, then that's an advantage over having to
flip through pages in a faster search engine.

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sayrer
bing is faster. my firefox search box has been set to bing for a week, and I
am not inclined to switch back.

(disclosure: I work for Mozilla, which competes with both Google and Microsoft
in browsers, but not in search)

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amichail
The methodology for this is flawed because people will tend to search for
things they have searched for before on Google and then pick Google as the
best because they find that ranking more familiar.

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jmtulloss
What would you propose instead? It seems that asking people which they prefer
is the only way to do this, even if it does stilt towards the market leader.

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encoderer
Here's a thought.. build a list of questions. Give them a search box to find
the answer, using their own queries, and let them choose which result set was
most helpful.

"What is" "Who is" "How was" type of questions.

Would be much more work, but could be worth it if you're trying to answer this
question accurately.

Tho personally, I've begun using Bing in addition to Google. I think this is
what most people will do. The idea that we only have room in our lives for one
search engine seems silly. Doesn't anyone remember what life was like before
Google? I'd often use multiple engines for a given query -- and each engine
had links to 'Try this search on ____' at the bottom of each result page.

Google has been so far better than the competition that such behavior has died
off. But I think it's going to make a comeback now. I guess we'll see.

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lucumo
It seems a bit like the author is rationalizing why he's still using Google.
Although I personally despise Google for the way they mangle my search
queries, I don't think there's a need to explain why you choose to use the
search engine you use.

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jay_kyburz
I'd like to just use this service to seach all three. Wish there was a simple
way to set this up in Firefox.

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sobriquet
do this: <http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/smart-keywords.html>

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michael_dorfman
I seem to pick Yahoo the vast majority of the time in the blind test. I wasn't
expecting that.

