Differences Between Search Engines

Following up on our discussion in class, Google doesn't have a monopoly on web indexing. The class has been tasked to compare and contrast the results of entering a common search word or phrase, like “let it be” with and without quotes, using three or more search engines.

By actually doing the research, my understanding into the workings of a typical search engine has been improved. I started this research by reading parts of Anatomy of a Search Engine from our list of suggested topics. I became interested in PageRanking and how some search engines use this method as a means of placing a website’s key words into a hierarchy. At first I thought I was getting off the track then realized this could be one of the possible “why or how” answer(s) to the question. In reading The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine document I found this passage, which explains the way PageRanking used in Google.

2. System Features
The Google search engine has two important features that help it produce high precision results. First, it makes use of the link structure of the Web to calculate a quality ranking for each web page. This ranking is called PageRank and is described in detail in [Page 98]. Second, Google utilizes link to improve search results.

2.1 PageRank: Bringing Order to the Web
The citation (link) graph of the web is an important resource that has largely gone unused in existing web search engines. We have created maps containing as many as 518 million of these hyperlinks, a significant sample of the total. These maps allow rapid calculation of a web page's "PageRank", an objective measure of its citation importance that corresponds well with people's subjective idea of importance. Because of this correspondence, PageRank is an excellent way to prioritize the results of web keyword searches. For most popular subjects, a simple text matching search that is restricted to web page titles performs admirably when PageRank prioritizes the results (demo available at google.stanford.edu). For the type of full text searches in the main Google system, PageRank also helps a great deal (Brin).
http://www-db.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html

Now getting back basics of the assignment. The search engines I chose were Dogpile, Ask Jeeves, Mooter, and of course Google. The first three entries for Google, sans quotes, where LetsSingIt.com - Your lyrics engine on the Internet!, Amazon.com: Music: Let It Be... Naked and Let's Go. But once I placed the “ “ around the phrase ‘let it be’ the first three entries changed to; Let It Be Records - Enter, Amazon.com: Music: Let It Be [SOUNDTRACK] and albany waterfront park - let it be! Dogpile’s first three entries, sans quotes, followed this pattern; Let It Be Records - Enter, Rentamatic 10,000+ Letting Agents with Properties to Rent and >>> Landlords, Tenants, Letting Agents - Rental Property Resources -. Dogpile’s response with quotes appeared this way; Let It Be Records - Enter, The Reel Beatles: "Let It Be" and The Atlantic May 2003 Let It Be Rauch. Next up came Ask Jeeves’ results, first with sans quotes; Let It Be-www.ez-tracks.com, Let It Be-eBay.com and Let It Be-BizRate.com. Ask Jeeves again, with quotes, shows almost no difference at all until the third entry; Let It Be-www.ez-tracks.com, Let It Be-eBay.com and Let It Be-eBay.com. It was right about then this was getting a little too predicable and, like my teenage son says, boring. So on an off chance I decided to take one more pass at yet another search engine and selected Mooter. Using ‘let it be,’ sans quotes, with this search engine threw me a curve. I actually thought I had done something wrong and re-entered the query again, but came up with the same results both times, “HTTP Status 500 -.” Well that was a bit of a let down. Ok Mooter one more time, with quotes, and I could compile the results for the paper.

What a difference a search engine makes and what a concept…images in the round. I liked it! Plus you could even select your choice of Mooting colors in red or blue. My curiosity peeked and with a renewed spirit towards this project I pushed on. Finding the layout intriguing and wanting to see where these images would lead me, I surfed them all. At the center of the overall image was All Results, then starting at the top and reading right the categories where as follows: speaking words of wisdom let, band, beatles, find myself in, in my hour, album and in my. To sum up my research, not all search engines are created equal. While Google and others search engines may use PageRanking as a way to hierarchy key words to fill their requirements, if you really want to do an in-depth search, don’t limit yourself to only the more popular know search engines. The World Wide Web is indeed a big place and for those want to stretch their wings and fly…well, what better way can it be said…the sky’s the limit.