PCWorld tests out search engines

April 27, 2007 By

Which search engine is best? PCWorld tested a bunch to find out the answer.

Filed Under: 1
  • Mark

    How can you run a query with so little context and hope that the search engines can find an answer for you?

    Check out their lame method:

    http://www.pcworld.com/zoom?id=130979&page=10&type=table&zoomIdx=3

    They search for Linksys WPA2, hoping to find “Yes, the Linksys WRT54G wireless router does support WPA2″???

    If anything, they are testing pure luck that the search engine ranks the terms they didn’t specify higher than the ones they did.

  • Mark

    How can you run a query with so little context and hope that the search engines can find an answer for you?

    Check out their lame method:

    http://www.pcworld.com/zoom?id=130979&page=10&type=table&zoomIdx=3

    They search for Linksys WPA2, hoping to find “Yes, the Linksys WRT54G wireless router does support WPA2″???

    If anything, they are testing pure luck that the search engine ranks the terms they didn’t specify higher than the ones they did.

  • Mark

    Whoops, that should be:

    If anything, they are testing pure luck that the search engine ranks the terms they didn’t specify but implied higher than the ones they didn’t specify and didn’t mean.

  • Mark

    Whoops, that should be:

    If anything, they are testing pure luck that the search engine ranks the terms they didn’t specify but implied higher than the ones they didn’t specify and didn’t mean.

  • http://searchdotnet.com/ Dan

    Curiously enough, they left out domain specific search – the kind now enabled by Google Custom Search.
    I think this technology has the potential to revolutionize search, by allowing domain experts to control the scope of searches – especially with the spread of troll sites and sites that just republish content. Try some of the “technical difficult” searches on searchdotnet.com and you’ll see what I mean (for example – the vista update results include posts by the developers who worked on it).

  • http://searchdotnet.com Dan

    Curiously enough, they left out domain specific search – the kind now enabled by Google Custom Search.
    I think this technology has the potential to revolutionize search, by allowing domain experts to control the scope of searches – especially with the spread of troll sites and sites that just republish content. Try some of the “technical difficult” searches on searchdotnet.com and you’ll see what I mean (for example – the vista update results include posts by the developers who worked on it).

  • Mr. Robinson

    I agree, Mark. They should’ve instead queried for San Francisco Sushi. ;)

  • Mr. Robinson

    I agree, Mark. They should’ve instead queried for San Francisco Sushi. ;)

  • Piotr Sarkhov

    In my opinion, I think most of the top players give somewhat even results. Not identical, mind you, but results that are largley on par.

  • Piotr Sarkhov

    In my opinion, I think most of the top players give somewhat even results. Not identical, mind you, but results that are largley on par.

  • Geo

    Dogpile.com and Jux2.com give you comparative results for the top four search engines.

  • Geo

    Dogpile.com and Jux2.com give you comparative results for the top four search engines.