Search Engine Wars - Quality Searches Vs Quantity!
|
|
It is no secret that Google and Yahoo are on a continuous battle to win our hearts and get everyone to convert, but is converting someone really a matter of the quantity or the quality?
Let's take a look at some top key searches and compare them with some search engines online. I will outline a few things for each search result:
1) Search Engine
2) Number of results found
3) Quality & content of the top 10 sites
4) What you find going beyond the first 10 pages
Each section will get ranked out of 10 points for quality (information taken on August 26,2005).
Starting with my all-time favorite search term: "INTERNET MARKETING"
Google.com
- 99,000,000 results
- 10/10 on quality
- 10/10 Past 10 pages still delivers top quality results
Yahoo.com
- 281,000,000 results
- 7/10 on quality. There's no reason to list a "Hotel Marketing Firm" & "Building websites". The #1 spot was reserved for Yahoo marketing.
- 9/10 Past 10 pages, it is very generic for business, not specific.
MSN.com
- 93,661,176 results
- 10/10 on quality
- 10/10 Past 10 pages still delivers high quality results. I am surprised and give MSN two thumbs up for their attention to detail.
Moving onto the search term for "BUSINESS NEWS"
Google.com
- 627,000,000 results
- 10/10 on quality
- 10/10 Beyond 10 pages delivers high quality & local news centers.
Yahoo.com
- 1,260,000,000 results (wow)
- 10/10 on quality
- 9/10 Beyond 10 pages. There are still some sites that should never be there.
MSN.com
- 381,631,054 results
- 8/10 on quality - Some aren't related at all and brand new sites as well.
- 10/10 beyond 10 pages. Their results seem to tighten up and get better.
Let's now take some more "local" search results to see deeper and more targeted results...
Moving on to the search term for "WASHINGTON UNIVERSITIES".
I hope to find the "University of Washington" come up #1 or thereabouts.
Google.com
- 22,700,000
- 10/10 on quality (www.washington.edu is #1)
- 10/10 beyond 10 pages. The results still deliver "university" topics.
Yahoo.com
- 143,000,000 results
- 9/10 on quality - The top spot is reserved for Yahoo on Washington University in St. Louis. There seems to be a strong battle going on here on which university to list.
- 10/10 beyond 10 pages. Content is specific and relevant.
MSN.com
- 34,442,536 results
- 9/10 on quality - Again another battle going on and washington.edu is #10 tilting on the verge of page 2.
- 10/10 beyond 10 pages. All related to Washington & University living
Let's now get even more specific than that... For this search term I will be using something very local that I can relate to and give a better analysis.
Moving on to the search term for "HAMILTON ONTARIO CANADA".
Google.com
- 3,700,000 results
- 10/10 on quality - Great job
- 10/10 beyond 10 pages - Anything goes but is directly related to Hamilton.
Yahoo.com
- 14,900,000 results
- 10/10 on quality - Almost the same as Google but a couple of different choices.
- 9/10 on quality - Some results are found by keyword stuffing their pages.
MSN Local *New (http://search.msn.com/local/)
- 1,280,405 results
- 9/10 on quality - Getting some random placements & keyword stuffing
- 10/10+ beyond 10 pages - Many local companies well listed in the results.
Let's now take a look at these results as a total. Out of a possible score of 80 points, here are the total scores for each:
Google - 80 points
MSN - 76 points
Yahoo - 73 points
Total search results delivered:
Google - 752,400,000
Yahoo - 1,698,900,000
MSN - 511,015,171
And people wonder why Google is the king of searching?! But wait, without even noticing the results, as I totaled the final point standings, MSN came up in second place! In my study, I tried to be as neutral as possible.
How is it that Msn & Google have 50% the amount of results shown in Yahoo, but outrank Yahoo in quality?
In conclusion:
Even though Yahoo delivered a report stating that it has over 19 billion search items, what does it matter when you're still trying to figure out how to deliver all that content? MSN & Google seem to know exactly what to do with their results. They don't seem "off the wall" at all. If Yahoo is to step up and be crowned the search king, I really think that they need to refine the amount of search terms they have, to match the quality of search results as well.
Yahoo has major potential to outreach Google but they still have a lot of work ahead of them and by the time they figure things out, Google may even step up their game even further and wow us all on some other search plateau.
About The Author:
Martin Lemieux is the president of the Smartads Advertising Network. Smartads is dedicated to helping you expose your business online and offline.
International: http://www.smartads.info
Article Submission Website (Beta): http://www.article99.com
Copyright © 2005 Smartads Advertising Network - Reprints Accepted - One link must be active in the bio.
|
|
|
Created & Maintained by Empower! CMS Web Sites
Host2Sell Web Hosting | Emarketing Workshops | Site SEO Review | FREE NewsletterA Simple 4 Step Approach To Have Google Crawl Your Site Today Guaranteed!
Extra, Extra Google Now Gives you feedback. By Creating a Google Sitemap using free online tools you can get Google to crawl your site within 24 Hours. As an Added bonus after Google Crawls your site they give you feedback about any problems they encountered. To take advantage of this amazing service from yahoo just follow these 4 simple ste...(related: Search Engine Optimization)
Breaking The Myth About Page Rank (pr)
The most difficult challenge most web designers face is getting traffic to your site. There are plenty of companies who promise to send traffic your way. Sadly, most of this traffic is not qualified. Yes, your hit counter will move higher, however, if its not qualified, you may find you have unhappy visitors to your site. Unhappy visitors will not click on your ads or purchase your products.Once you have optimized your site, consider submitting it to every search engine. If you want to get spidered quicker in Google, have a web page with a PR of 4 or higher point to your site. Your site will be spidered within a couple of days!One myth I would like to bust is that PR is a measure of a web site. Its not. I receive countless emails offering a reciprocal link ...(related: Search Engine Optimization)
Seo = Search Engine Optimization, Tips On Successful Page Ranking
One of the key things to remember when developing your web-site presence is to always evaluate your competition. See what's working for them; how they market their products and services, and even evaluate their KEYWORD and DISCRIPTION tags.The key points of using these two Meta Tags, is optimization!Evaluate your Keywords: ...(related: Search Engine Optimization)
Wordtracker Wisdom: Common Keyword Questions And Answers
One of my favorite subjects to teach on at our live SEO Mastery Workshops is that of keyword research and the behavior o...(related: Search Engine Optimization)
Selecting The Title Of Your Link Exchanges
I want to touch base with selecting the title of the links that are added to other sites. Adding your link on another site is very important for your search engine saturation and rankings.More importantly, what title do you chose?Many seo firms our there now believe that web sites ...(related: Search Engine Optimization)
What Is Search Engine Optimization?
It is no secret that search engines are the number one traffic generating method for driving visitors to the different web sites. Search engines are very useful in helping people find the relevant information they seek on the Internet. The major search engines develop and maintain their own gigantic database of web sites that can be searched by a user ...(related: Search Engine Optimization)
Creating Search Engine Friendly Web Sites
With tons of competition and copycats online, you need a trustworthy search engine expert to help you tackl...(related: Search Engine Optimization)
Google Search Algorithm Patent Application Creates Spring Buzz!
Google applied for a patent on their ranking algorithm as of 15months ago on December 31, 2003 and that application was postedon March 31st at the US Patent Office. It got the discussionforums buzzing this weekend. Even though I had substantial workto do and was behind on a project, I couldn't resist thetemptation to read the very long 14,000 word, 45 pageapplication and see what it could mean to the volatile world ofsearch.So I tripped on over to the the US Patent & Trademark Office(USPTO) and started reading the document United States ...(related: Search Engine Optimization)
Search Engine Strategies For Affiliate Websites
The major search engines are always on the lookout to improve their search results and to weed out websites with duplicate content. They are also weeding out websites that mainly contain affiliate links. This is going to affect quite a few businesses on the Internet that depend on affiliate links to generate revenue.Especially the last Google update kicked some major affiliate players out the index - leaving those websites out in the rain. Loss of traffic was immediate and loss of revenue was dramatic. Future updates can be even more dramatic - therefore threatening the existence of online businesses depending on affiliate marketing. It can also affect the actual company running the affiliate program as their sales would go down if affiliates fail to generate leads.
site-map - Copyright © 2006 Empower! Web Design | All Rights Reserved. | Search Engine Optimization