You've heard all the hype about Google vs Bing vs Yahoo. "Blindsearch" is an automatic side-by-side taste test. You enter your search, and it presents results from all three search engines side by side, and stripped of any branding information. You see which set of results comes closest to what you want, and can cast a blind vote for that search engine. With each new search, the positions of the search engine results are shuffled so that, for example, Google won't always be the first results shown.
http://blindsearch.fejus.com/
Dunno if it'll change anyone's mind, but it's an interesting experiment.
(PS: The author of the site compiled the votes after half a million searches. The results are posted here: http://delicategeniusblog.com/?p=839 )
Thank goodness my search terms weren't up there with sex and porn. I tried it when BlindSearch first launched, so I can't remember what they were, but they were things I was actually searching for, as opposed to "test." I came to the conclusion that the "other two" aren't quite up to primetime yet, but I was surprised how many times Yahoo got a (decent) hit before Google. Although I *have* been complaining about Google finds getting progressively irrelevant and/or complex for some time now I think I'll stick with it for a while longer.
ReplyDeleteThat was exactly my experience, too. Google is still best for the way I search, but Yahoo made an unexpectedly strong showing. Not enough to warrant a switch, but surely enough to earn a "Hmmmmm."
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