Google is one of the best inventions in recent years.

[neomits]

Originally posted by: Spac3d
I use Google enough that I downloaded the Google Toolbar. 1 less page to load to use the Google search Highly reccomended for all the google fans.

Spac3d

yep love the Google and the Google bar


for things to do after reformating and reinstalling windows... installing the Google Bar is somewhere in the top 5

 

[Parrotheader]

I do pay-per-click advertising and search engine optimization for a living so I'm a WEEE bit familiar with the search engines

Google was a welcome breath of fresh air a couple years ago and is still the top dog. But the competitive advantage it enjoyed is now diminishing somewhat as more and more search engines are increasingly utilizing ranking algorithms similar to Google's (i.e., rankings results based heavily on inbound link popularity.) For the vast majority of general searches this algorithm works very well as it gives you sites that are considered more authoritative in that particular area. However, once you start hammering down to more detailed searches using longer query strings, that advantage quickly evaporates into nearly nothing as they're all then fairly equal (with some actually doing better than Google at times.) In fact, one of the main reasons Google might still seem superior on these more detailed searches is due to the sheer size of their index which is considerably larger than most of their competition.

Google's still my primary search engine of choice, but I also use others quite a bit. Anybody looking for some other backups, I'd highly recommend:

-Teoma
-Alltheweb.com (aka FAST)
-Wisenut (they're still working on this one, but has done VERY VERY well for me at times.

Here's a search engine 'report card' style article I just received a few minutes ago from one of my e-mail lists. Pretty relevant to this subject.

And from a historical standpoint, I still remember the first time I used the now dead Infoseek back in the mid-90s. I was floored, by how much better it was than all its competition at the time. Likewise, Altavista was one of the best engines going in the late 90s.

 

[jjones]

Google is what I use primarily for searches and its relevancy is generally pretty good. I also use alltheweb and teoma at times to get alternative results if I'm looking for a wider variety or more in depth results. Both of those are almost as good as google. Altavista used to be great but their relevancy took a sh!t about a year and a half ago; dunno why but they suck now and I never use them. Back in the early days, Excite was a great search engine but those days are long gone. I never liked hotbot, I always have received better results from other search engines.

 

[Triumph]

You know, maybe I'm a minority, but I always liked the way Yahoo had stuff laid out, the old style. Everything was categorized nicely with a brief description; you didn't just get page after page of nonesense like with AltaVista and Lycos. But now something is different about Yahoo, and I don't quite like it. I still keep it as my main page mostly because of the incredibly stupid headlines.

 

[Kev]

Originally posted by: Triumph
You know, maybe I'm a minority, but I always liked the way Yahoo had stuff laid out, the old style. Everything was categorized nicely with a brief description; you didn't just get page after page of nonesense like with AltaVista and Lycos. But now something is different about Yahoo, and I don't quite like it. I still keep it as my main page mostly because of the incredibly stupid headlines.

I get a headache just looking at Yahoo. I can't stand it.

 

[FoBoT]

yes, google is awesome

best inventions of the 20th century

1. google
2. internet
3. computers
4. everything else

 

[BigSmooth]

Google is good.

 

[Parrotheader]

Originally posted by: Triumph
You know, maybe I'm a minority, but I always liked the way Yahoo had stuff laid out, the old style. Everything was categorized nicely with a brief description; you didn't just get page after page of nonesense like with AltaVista and Lycos. But now something is different about Yahoo, and I don't quite like it. I still keep it as my main page mostly because of the incredibly stupid headlines.

Yahoo actually used to pull their directory results on the first page and then would pull results from whatever search engine they had a partnership with as backup results (used to be Altavista, then Inktomi, now it's Google.) Within the last month, Yahoo has changed its results page from showing ONLY directory listings first to now showing only the directory category titles (if relevant) and is now showing Google results on the first page. So basically, Google content is now filling the majority of the space on the page so anybody bashing Yahoo ought to double-check since you'd also be bashing Google. And with Google also feeding AOL, Google now has feeds into 2 of the top 3 portals, MSN being the lone holdout.

 

[Dat]

Google's great but their hub-authority model can still be fooled by (and has been) by huge link farms..