Search Engine Quality Test Results

Using our documented testing methodology, we tested the five most popular search engines to scientifically determine which search engine produced the best results for searchers.

The Randomly Selected Search Terms

We chose one search term from each of our pre-defined categories for this initial round of testing. These search terms were:

Category	Search
A band or a musician	Jimmy Buffett
A famous athlete	Tiger Woods
A historical figure	Friedrich Nietzsche
A movie	Hell Boy
A place	Belize
A politician	Aaron Russo
A pretty girl	Lauren Bush
An entertainer	Robert Duvall
Something to buy	ThinkPad T41

The Results - Which Search Engine Does Return the Best Results?

The results of our tests show Google as the leader in returning the best search results, followed by Yahoo, then AllTheWeb.

However, Google's score of 7.8 is only 1.4 points above the worst score, which was AltaVista at 6.4.

Category	Search	G	Y	M	AV	ATW
A band or a musician	Jimmy Buffett	7	6.5	8	5.5	8
A famous athlete	Tiger Woods	10	10	7.5	9.5	9
A historical figure	Friedrich Nietzsche	10	9.5	8.5	8	8.5
A movie	Hell Boy	4.5	7.5	4	0.5	4
A place	Belize	10	9	9	9	9
A politician	Aaron Russo	10	9	9	10	9
A pretty girl	Lauren Bush	9	7	9	8	8.5
An entertainer	Robert Duvall	7.5	4.5	3	4.5	3
Something to buy	ThinkPad T41	10	9	9	9	9
Average:		7.8	7.2	6.7	6.4	6.8

Results this close point to factors other than search result relevancy as being critical for the success of a search engine.

These factors include criteria such as:

• Speed
• Graphical presentation
• Searching language syntax
• Freedom from intrusive advertising

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