Monday, January 29, 2007

The Great Search

I'm using various engines to search the web, and comparing the results. For comparison purposes, I've chosen to search for international monks, simply because these were the first random words to pop into my head. What psychological statement this makes about me, I'm not certain, but here are the results:

1) Exalead- Many internationally-flavored sites on monks and monestaries came up.

2) Wink- Only social networks are searched, so the results were odd. The web search tab on this page links to the personal search engine, making me wonder why it's even on here.

3) Gravee- News search results only. However, if I ever wish to know what international monks are up to, this would work just fine.

4) Clusty- Results very similar to Exalead, with many of the same hits in the top ten.

5) Mooter- Interesting graphic-cluster approach to searching, but I didn't notice any difference between the results displayed for each cluster! They all had the same links, all to news.

6) KartOO- No flash player is loaded on the workstation I'm at, so I shall attempt later...

7) Yahoo- Emphasis on news and music in the results. Not the same as Clusty or Exalead.

What have I learned from all this searching? Different search terms might be necessary to get similar results, but as is, the results I wish to get would determine which engine to use. Emphasis is on news items when using Yahoo or Gravee, blogs and personal pages with Wink. When it comes down to it, even though I might branch out to other engines now and then, I'm still a happy Googler.

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