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Comparing Consumer Search Options

I was particularly interested in ths posting that shows that there may be regional or country differences in the search performance of Bing and Google.

Bing Serves Up Most Successful Canadian Searches

"Last month, Hitwise shared data showing the paltry number of Canadian searches deemed successful. Far too many Canadians have to refine searches in order to find what they're looking for. After receiving many requests to break down the data by search engine, Hitwise has revealed that Bing serves up the highest percentage of successful searches in Canada.Still, most searchers are hanging out on Google."

But it's still early days yet.

As librarians we might desire to try a few searches and read a few articles to have an informed opinion on the differences between the big three (soon to be big two), Google, Bing and Yahoo! Otherwise we're no better than some teenage brand devotees who wear the brand name jeans just because everyone else at school does!

Here are some links to start you off:

Microsoft's Bing Vs Google: Head To Head Search Results

Search Google and Bing at the same time

Bing vs. Google vs. Yahoo: Feature Smackdown

Search Smackdown: Bing Vs. Google

3 Tools to Compare Google and Bing Search Results

Bing vs. Google, side by side comparison

Compare Bing's search results with Google's using Bing vs. Google

Bing vs. Google: Comparing Them Side-by-side

List of Bing,Google & Yahoo Comparison tools

I still think that the future is bifurcated. Consumer search will stay in these ad driven engines and be manipulated by search engine optimizers and advertisers. Important searches will increasingly move into a small group of researchers, hobbyists and academics who value selection, vertical databases and search results that are more than a list - visually enhanced, tuned, faceted search results and word cloud style suggestions for a start. Searches that are informed by searcher sensitive taxonomies and ontologies (like MeSH, etc.) will start to be baked into the vertical search space.

That's just the future. For now, we must understand the strengths and weaknesses of consumer search in order to promote better search for targeted markets where the searcher might be saving a life instead of choosing a restaurant or checking up on Paris Hilton (the person or the hotel).

Stephen

Full post as published by Stephen's Lighthouse on September 10, 2009 (boomark / email).