Searching #75: Google and Beyond

1) Type in at least three queries in Blindsearch, hit search, and then vote for the column which you believe best matches what you were seeking. The columns are randomized with each search. How did your favorite search engine rate in the three tries? Do you think this will affect how you search in the future?



Query 1: Sandstorms in Beijing (a topic I was hearing about on the Science Channel as I was working on this post). Google was the winner, being most specific and current, but all looked pretty good.



Query 2: Harris County Texas History (a display we are working on at the library got me thinking about this). Google was a clear winner here. The other search engines got sidetracked in issues of crime, cemeteries, and even gardening!



Query 3: Nancy Agafitei (Hmmm... It's interesting what is out there!) Yahoo did the best job finding sites with real info, not just mentions. It included my Harris County blog as #1, the branch page, a review I wrote for Amazon, the branch E-vents calendar, and my son's website.



Google is the engine I use most often, so Blindsearch supported that. However, I might use Yahoo if I am searching for people.




2) What search engine was #1 on Hitwise the week that you searched? How did it compare to its closest competitor? Do the usage statistics match your own personal choice of a favorite?



For the week ending 1/2/2010, Hitwise had no surprises. The big three took the top spots, with Google pretty much ruling the roost when comparing volume of searches:
1. google 72.25%
2. yahoo 14.83%
3. bing 8.91%

Other search engines that made the top 10 by number of visits were (in numerical order):



4. Google Image Search

5. Ask.com

6. AOL

7. Yahoo Image Search

8. Dogpile

9. Sphere

10. Yahoo Video Search



So once again, Hitwise supported my choice of Google for searching.



Interesting side note: The list of the top 20 websites for the week included all three of the top search engines and their variants (images, videos, e-mail, etc.), plus eBay, MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia, MSN and Amazon. Notably absent was Twitter. Perhaps it has outlived its usefulness as it has grown so big??




3) Marketing of search engines requires that they continually add new features that they hope will appeal to you. Explore the features of one of the major search engines (Google, Yahoo!, or Bing). What new things did you discover that you would find useful?



Since Google is my choice, I checked it first. I most often use Google to search the web. I also use it a lot to search for images. Sometimes I have used Google Maps. This year I opened a gmail account for my own e-mail. But clicking on the "More" button open some additional possibilities that I would like to try out:

Blogs -- Let's you search in blogs.

Books -- Gives you access to what a recent SirsiDynix webinar called "Google's Hidden Libraries." This is truly amazing. According to information on the site, today you can search the full-text of over 7 million books.



Among other things, it includes the full-text of a large magazine archive, complete with cover art and all graphics. And you can do a search across all issues of all titles. A child doing a report on Texas Indians could type in the work "Karankawa" and get three pages of hits, many from Texas Monthly.

Clicking on books under the category of "Literature" gives one the choice of 4,710 titles that can be viewed, at least partially. Of these, 1,115 are full-text public domain titles that can be read online. I added a classic Hawthorne title I needed for a book club to "My Library", and could have read it online.