Search Engines

[The Beatles]

Here's an interesting but statistically insignificant little trial. Remember http://frostnflame.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=1933&view=findpost&p=34827
* http://search.lycos.com/default.asp?loc=searchbox&tab=web&query=iowa+son+of+an+innkeeper&submit.x=27&submit.y=3&submit=image
* http://msxml.excite.com/info.xcite/search/web/iowa%2Bson%2Bof%2Ban%2Binnkeeper

=== Lower on first page ===
* http://www.metacrawler.com/info.metac/search/web/iowa%2Bson%2Bof%2Ban%2Binnkeeper/1/-/1/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/417/top (3rd hit)
* http://www.mamma.com/Mamma?qtype=0&query=iowa+son+of+an+innkeeper&Submit=%A0%A0Search%A0%A0 (3rd hit)
* http://www.google.com/search?q=iowa+son+of+an+innkeeper&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official (4th hit)
* http://a9.com/iowa%20son%20of%20an%20innkeeper (7th hit)
* http://msxml.webcrawler.com/info.wbcrwl/search/web/iowa%2Bson%2Bof%2Ban%2Binnkeeper/1/-/1/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/417/top (7th hit)
* http://www.dogpile.com/info.dogpl/search/web/iowa%2Bson%2Bof%2Ban%2Binnkeeper/1/-/1/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/417/top (9th hit)
* http://www.search.com/search?tag=se.fd.box.main.search&q=iowa+son+of+an+innkeeper (10th hit)

=== Not on first page ===
* http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&search=iowa+son+of+an+innkeeper&fulltext=Search
* http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?FORM=GSM001&q=iowa%20son%20of%20an%20innkeeper
* http://www.altavista.com/web/results?itag=ody&q=iowa+son+of+an+innkeeper&kgs=1&kls=0
* http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=UTF-8&fr=sfp&p=iowa+son+of+an+innkeeper
* http://www.alltheweb.com/search?cat=web&cs=iso88591&q=iowa+son+of+an+innkeeper&rys=0&itag=crv&_sb_lang=pref

[Devari]

Amazing. The traditionally crappy search engines got it first.

Someone really should do a search-off comparison, and see if Google actually lives up to the hype.

[The Beatles]

Corporatization...

Still, I wouldn't quite look down on those that got it on the first page -- the real break is not between ranks 2 and 4, or even 2 and 10, but between "see it right away" or "don't see it".

[Devari]

True. But, I meant, in general, tech geeks worship Google as the end-all be-all. I tend to wonder if it really is as good as claimed.

[The Beatles]

Probably not. Then again, it's unique in that different people searching for WINE will get different results based on their previous searching habits. Whether that is a good thing is debatable.

Actually this is pretty inconclusive. If you use a meta-search engine, you're guaranteed to get a superset of results, but you may not like the priority (which was the important thing here). Why don't you try some equally obscure queries?

[Devari]

I tend to feel that priority is far more important than sheer number of results. Just about no one will search past the first 10 pages, in all honesty.

Speaking of which, there's a new version of WINE out.

[Honest Killer]

I don't know about google, it is ok...
but is is true, I never search past the first 10 pages unl;ess I'm desperate for something! *laughs*