As an information professional, I view staying up to date on search methods and how people find information as critical. It is also important to remember that asking a librarian or visiting a library (either online or in person) typically ranks low in the list of place people go for information. From what I’ve found in the literature, asking friends, family or colleagues is number one 1, with Internet search engines come in as a strong second. The personal connection still matters a great deal, a finding that needs to be kept in mind. This post is not meant to be exhaustive, but simply to note some of the main qualities of each search engine. As usual, readers are welcome to agree, disagree or otherwise comment in the comments section .
Originally launched at Stanford University in 1997, Google Search has become the most popular search engine on the Internet. By one estimate released in the summer of 2009, Google Search is estimated to have performed about 77% of all searches in the US. Beyond search, Google offers a variety of interesting services – Google Maps, Google Scholar and Google Book Search are among my favourites.
Basic Interface: Simple and Spartan, Google Search has few options. After entering some text, one can choose “Google Search” or “I’m Feeling Lucky.” As far as I know, nobody uses the “I’m Feeling Lucky” option, though this playfulness does set Google apart from its competitors. As a test, I searched for my name using “I’m Feeling Lucky” and ended up at the blog which is a good result as far as I’m concerned. In the search results page, there is a very clear seperation between organic and paid search results which I notice and appreciate – I wonder if the average user does though?
Advanced Search: There are a number of good options here, but it is not as powerful and precise at search as resources like Factiva (news, mainly business focused) or Historical Abstracts (academic history articles, US and world). Useful options here include limit by file type (e.g. search only for PDFs – this is a good option if you are looking for more ‘formal’ documents, government documents and the like), Region (this should actually have “Country” since ‘region’ makes me think of provinces or states)
Evaluation: Still the best for many kinds of search and the company’s other non-search services (e.g. Maps) are very good indeed. The advanced search has some good features but leaves something to be desired.
Launched by Microsoft, Bing is increasingly regarded as the prime competitor to Bing rather than Yahoo. For all intents and purposes, Bing’s speed is comparable to Google. Launched in May 2009, Bing is Microsoft’s latest attempt to compete in search after earlier efforts (Live.com and MSN) failed to become very popular. With the announcement that Bing’s technology would now power Yahoo’s search, many people began to pay attention to it.
Basic Interface: Like Google, Bing presents a simple search box. However, it is supplemented by a changing, compelling image in the background. In search results, there are some differences; there is a history on the left of recent searches performed and a list of related searches. I like this option. On the other hand, Bing does not integrate map/local search results (i.e. do searches for “book stores new york” on Google and Bing: on Google, you get stores plotted onto a map, not so on Bing).
Advanced Search: While Bing does have the most popular advanced search options (Site/Domain, Country/Region, and Language), that’s all it has to offer. This strikes as rather limited compared to Google, but perhaps that suits the needs of the average user.
Evaluation: What Bing lacks in advanced search options, the homepage is quite compelling making the site worth a visit. It has a style that reminds me of Apple – a first in my experience of Microsoft products. Not strong enough in functionality to challenge Google, especially in non-Web materials (Scholar ans Books). Bing is still worth keeping an eye on though.
References:
Chapter 11 (Research by Occupation) in “Looking for Information: A Survey of Research on Information Seeking, Needs and Behaviour. Second Edition” (New York: Elsevier, 2007) is a good resource on this topic. It summarizes studies on scientists, engineers, managers, journalists, lawyers, social scientists and others and comes to the conclusion: “A frequent finding is that people still turn to other people for information.”
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Microsoft Bing would be the closet competitor of Google. but i still use Google because it shows more relevant results on the serp.