PCWorld tests out search engines

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=...

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.

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.

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).

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

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.

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