Search Engines: Google vs. MSN vs. Yahoo

Have you ever really tried the exact same search term on Google, MSN (live.com) and Yahoo!? I think usually people tend to have settled on a particular search engine and that’s where they stay. At least that is the behavior I have noticed in my friends and co-workers. It is almost as if they don’t know the other search engines exist.

Anyway, I run a few web sites and I also do web development so I find myself testing different search engines to see how a particular site is ranking. I also consult others on getting their business web sites higher in the search engine rankings so I try to stay informed on the most popular search engines and their idiosyncrasies.

Recently I have noticed a drastic difference in the search results for these three search engines.

Relevance. Usually when you use a search engine you really want to see results that are relevant to your search words or phrase. I would say that a few years ago, 2003?, after Microsoft revamped Live.com that their search results were more relevant than the results from a Google search. Recently it seems that Live.com has lost that edge and Google has really improved. I am not sure exactly when this happened, but it is noticeable.

In my opinion Yahoo! has never been a very good search engine. Maybe they only have one or two bots cruising around the web updating it's index because it is very slow to notice changes to web site, or even to get newly launched sites into their index in the first place. I used to know some people who used Yahoo! but they kind of sucked so it just seemed to be a good fit for them.

See for yourself. Next time you need to search for something try a few different search engines using the exact same keywords or phrase and see how your results stack up. For me as I write this Google is definitely the leader in relevance and, in my opinion, the winner.