

Either Google thinks Altavista is the best search engine or it has the best SEO - vaksel
http://www.google.com/search?q=search+engine

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noelchurchill
According to the google keyword tool, approximately 368,000 people search for
the exact phrase [search engine] each month worldwide, and 135,000 in the US.
I wonder what those people are really expecting to find when they search
Google for search engine. I would think the Wikipedia result would be the most
relevant.

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archon810
Well, it seems Altavista somehow has a PR of 9. The only other site with the
PR of 9 on that page is Yahoo but Yahoo's page doesn't seem to mention "search
engine" as explicitly as Altavista, so the ranking makes sense.

How in the world Altavista has a PR of 9 is a mystery though.

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meatbag
"...the ranking makes sense." PR and rank are often correlated, but PR is not
a good predictor of actual rank.

"How in the world Altavista has a PR of 9 is a mystery though." A large volume
of natural links is probably the explanation here. altavista.com probably
ended up in some trusted repository as well, which may render it relatively
immune to "penalties" or other dampening factors.

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m0th87
Funny, AltaVista doesn't seem to think too highly of itself:
[http://www.altavista.com/web/results?itag=ody&q=search+e...](http://www.altavista.com/web/results?itag=ody&q=search+engine&kgs=1&kls=0)

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hardik
dogpile is coming on #1 for me

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vaksel
you are probably logged in and it's giving you custom results.

Dogpile is #2 for me.

On bing #1 result is Dogpile

On Yahoo #1 result is Yahoo

On Dogpile, #1 result is Dogpile

On Ask, #1 result is Ask

On Altavista, #1 result is Yahoo

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tfh
I'm not logged in and I'm also getting Dogpile as #1 result. I hate that when
google alters my results according to my country/login.

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txxxxd
Out of curiosity, why does this bother you?

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bartl
What guarantees that the results are _better_ for you?

I feel I can trust the "results for everybody" better as are likely more
thoroughly verified.

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landyman
I think its more impressive that Google doesn't even rank itself in the top 10

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kajecounterhack
Hm I think this is Google making sense: why display itself as a result? You're
obviously not looking for Google if you're using Google to find a search
engine.

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timothychung
Due to Google's preference to key word search at the moment?

Google doesn't like semantic now as I recall someone posted a link saying that
maybe half a year ago.

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tengkahwee
If that's the case Bing probably has the worst. The excerpt reads "Visual
Search · » · » · » · » · ◄ · ►. ©. The USS Missouri and Arizona Memorial in
Pearl..."

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chanux
For me, #1 A news related to GOOG #2 Dogpile #3 Altavista

But for the query 'search' Altavista is the #1 and Google is next to it.

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breck
DuckDuckGo was only 2 after Google. Way to go!

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meatbag
6,310,000 old backlinks, many of which come from highly trusted sources, might
have some effect.

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chrischen
Well Altavista _used_ to be the best search engine.

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c00p3r
It is the oldest one.

