Google or Yahoo or Bing , Which is Better and Why?

Internet search is perhaps the only way for most of us to navigate the vast sea of information we call the World Wide Web. No wonder that Search engines and search engine optimization have spun off into vast virtual empires. As an ordinary user simply looking for what he/she wants, which one of them caters to the requirements? Let us see.

Easy to use

Although all three are relatively easy to use minute details are what separate what someone likes and someone does not.

Google: Arguably the easiest to use because it assumes that the user is a first timer and additional features are not that difficult to find and use.

Yahoo: Being on the yahoo front-page puts it at a disadvantage as the spotlight is shared by many other features and applications. Though not difficult ,not as easy as google.

Bing: Very easy to use but it will take time for the netizens to get familiar with the surroundings.

Easy access

Access meaning how does a user get there. Links and search boxes on other sites excluded, how one gets to the home page. Might seem like a trivial factor, yet it is important for those new to the net and that is a huge population.

Google: Perhaps most easy to access and understand as far as a typical user is concerned. A simple google.com and we are there. No fuss.

Yahoo: The most relevant reason why google beats yahoo is not what services we get, but how we get there. Anyone would rather type google.com than search.yahoo.com. It's plain laziness but customer comfort is very important and a huge volume of users type the name in address bar as opposed to any other manner of access. If yahoo is listening, please change your search engine address to ya.com or hoo.com and see the difference.

Bing: Again very easy to access. No wonder its fast catching up to yahoo.

Easy on the eyes

How is the aesthetic appeal of the pages while searching, doing research using the search engine?

Google: Simple is the motto here, uncluttered and unobtrusive. All features are neatly arranged.

Yahoo: If the yahoo homepage is taken, a user who is there to simply perform a search or research is bound to be distracted. Too much is going on and too many flash ads. It is ideal for someone looking to kill time but not otherwise. The search.yahoo page is almost identical to google.

Bing: Best of the three hands down. The site was built with beauty as top priority.

Quality/Relevant Content

What type of results does the search engine return? Do they answer your query, get you relevant information, or leave you even more confused?

Google: Performing one or two keyword searches on google is shown to give relevant results, but as number of words increases, Google's accuracy drastically falls. The problem, google does not understand English. That's right. Words like if, and, or, but etc. have absolutely no relevance though they might make or break the query meaning. Relevant results are pushed to back pages and only keywords from whole sentence are given importance. Hopefully google soon rectifies that.

Yahoo: Yahoo is your friendly neighborhood grocer. It knows exactly what you are looking for. May not compare to keyword search of google but sure beats it when it comes to doing research and long queries. Yahoo understands and this is what has kept it alive after so many blows from google.

Bing: The decision engine as it calls itself is anything but that. Bing is still lost at sea when it comes to what the core objective of a search engine is. It seems all top ten results are reserved for product and marketing sites. Relevant results don't appear till two or three pages have gone by.

Most up-to-date

Looking for news, which site has the latest? Here I would like to refer to Mr. Matt McGee's article on how the three top search engines and other sites responded to Michael Jackson's sad and untimely demise .

Google: The news captions mention about the death, but due to overload the site was down. After it was up the news was up-to-date but the search results did not mention for quite some time.

Yahoo: Not as quick as google but the site had all relevant search data soon and added a personal touch by going ahead and doing their own news coverage of the event. As I mentioned earlier, yahoo has that human touch.

Bing: Bing showed the worst response to the event. Relevant information was at the bottom and news updates came late, also the overload was not taken too well by them.

Privacy

How much is user privacy respected? Although all three have strict privacy rules, collecting user data to identify trends is common practice. Also the law of the land applies.

Google: All things considered, google is a wolf in sheepskin. Case and point, Google Trends. Every search is carefully scrutinized and stored in their database along with other information and if need be ip address of the user is also there. This, along with majority market share has turned innocent searchers into tools of marketing. As if living in a consumer driven world was not enough, our virtual life is also been taken over by corporations. So if you have been using google and Gmail for more than a few years now, then google knows you better that your parents, lovers, friends and others combined. Scary but true. They say that search data is periodically wiped off, but if they can give gb's of space for free mail accounts, I wonder if they would throw away such valuable data or rather put it in cold storage for later use.

Yahoo: Not as scary as google as user privacy is more important to them than google and moreover yahoo mail is not as popular. They also claim to wipe user search data more frequently than google. The best of the three is yahoo when it comes to privacy.

Bing: If it looks commercial, acts commercial, and is owned by Microsoft ....guess the rest. If how Microsoft treated IBM et.al. is anything to go by, google and yahoo better be well prepared. One should not expect Bing to respect their privacy much.

Final verdict

The ranking should differ according to the different sections of users.

If you are looking for a quickie, i.e. a quick search for relevant information likes definitions etc. or people, news, i.e. searches revolving around one or two keywords, then Google wins. Seeing as these types of searches are majority of all searches made, market share is dominated by google.

If you have to thoroughly research a subject, then first preference should be given to yahoo along with going over google and bing results form back pages.

If privacy is of prime concern to you for whatever reason, yahoo is the way to go.

If you work in the beauty of fashion industry, then Bing is made for you. Who knows the new wallpaper might act as a muse.

If local search is what you need, then both Bing and yahoo are much better than google.

If you are looking for pictures or videos, then Bing wins.

If you are looking for travel, maps, navigation, then Google is the obvious winner.

All in all, all three will serve your purpose to an extent. Google has one thing going for it - loyalty. Millions use only google everyday as they have been doing for many years. Hope Google does not abuse this trust and keeps on innovating. Lastly it is for you to decide which caters to you best.

References -

Matt McGee
http://searchengineland.com/michael-jackson-extraordinary-day-in-search-21641