Search Engine Exploration and Blog entry:
This assignment is a preliminary comparative exploration of popular
search engines. Next week you will embark on a more rigorous
comparison.
Run the same query on
Google and
on three other popular search engines:
Yahoo,
MSN
Windows Live and
Ask.
(Note: according to
Search
Engine Watch,
AOL Web
search is more popular than
Ask,
but because it is "enhanced by Google", the results are very similar to
Google's - although not identical.) You may choose any
query you like, but to be most informative it should be a query typical
of what you would actually use and one that you think is neither too
easy nor too difficult for a search engine to provide good
results. Look at the top ten organic results of each search
engine. You don't have to click on each result, but get an idea
of how successful you find the search to be.
Write a blog entry describing your findings for your search on the four
search engines. State exactly the query you used and why
you chose it. Discuss the quality of the search results, both in
absolute terms and comparatively among the four search engines.
Are there other aspects of the search results that affect your overall
satisfaction with the search on each engine (e.g. the way results
are presented)? You may also comment on the quality of the
"sponsored results" (a.k.a "ads") if there are any, but I am most
interested in the organic results.
Please remember your blog is public. Your entry should be well
thought out and clearly written.
A.S. LaPaugh Thur Nov 1 15:29 EDT
2007