Google Vs Bing Vs Yahoo – New Study Reveals Best Search Engine!
A recent report from analysts Citigroup has compared the search results for Google, Yahoo and Bing in an effort to determine which search engine produces the most accurate results.
The study compared 200 queries and concluded that Google was significantly better at returning the most relevant results compared to Yahoo and Bing. The results are very convincing with Google returning the most relevant result 71% of the time, compared with Bing at 49% and Yahoo! 30%.
Citigroup’s Mark Mahaney explains their methodology for the study:
“Over the past two weeks, we conducted 200 queries across the three major Search engines – Google, Yahoo! and Bing. Most of the queries we picked came from Google Zeitgeist, Microsoft’s xRank and Yahoo! Buzz, along with some personal queries. These queries spanned multiple categories, including Entertainment, Health, Local, News, Retail, Sports, Travel and Other.
After conducting the same query across all three search sites, we picked a winner based on: 1) relevancy of the organic search results; and 2) robustness of the search experience, which included factors such as image and video inclusion, Search Assist, and Site Breakout.
It’s interesting to note that Bing actually beat Google in 2 categories: Health & Travel, while Yahoo really struggled”
Google should be pleased with this result but shouldn’t be complacent.
Bing is well on the way to becoming a big competitor. With this weeks announcement that the much hyped Microsoft/Yahoo merger has now been finalised and the apparent decision for Yahoo to be powered by Bing, it will be interesting to see what happens in the search engine war over the next 12 months.
What do you think?
Is Google still your favourite search engine of choice or do you prefer the new search experience provided by Bing. As ever, your comments would be appreciated.
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August 11th, 2009 at 21:14
It’s really good to see extra competition in the field that is biting at Google’s heels; it can only benefit us end-users by having the vendors shift up a gear.
That said, I still default to Google’s search services, as I’m a big fan of the features around their core functionality, such as Google Custom Search, which allows users like me and you to harness their power and implement it in any way we like, wherever we like.
For people like me, who build websites and work with search engines on a daily basis, it’s certainly interesting topic to watch develop. Let’s just hope no unnamed vendors try to make our development processes difficult!
August 12th, 2009 at 08:11
Couldn’t agree more Adam.