Beyond Google

Google is seen by many as a search standard. Initially it built on its

simplicity, huge reach, and speed of response. Lately it is moving in many different directions-from a directory-based search, to Google Earth to

searching your desktop. And, of course, advertising based revenue streams. But

if one were to go back to the original proposition of search engines-finding

of relevant information-then is Google really the best search engine? Are

there more around that offer, if not better, at least equally good search?

In general, any search engine uses three basic components to

answer a query: Its Web crawler crawls the Web or visits Web pages regularly to

gather information about them; the indexer generates anThere is more to search

than size,



and on that parameter there is a long way to go index of Web pages based on the
information gathered by the Web crawler; and, finally, the query server displays

your results in a particular order.

Shyam Malhotra There is more to search than size, and on that parameter there is a long way to go

Google uses proprietary software, PageRank-developed by Google's

founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin-which use text-matching techniques to

find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. The

popularity-ranking method works out the order in which the search results are

displayed-based on how many other sites link to each page. MSN and Yahoo (and

AltaVista) use categories and keywords to index pages. The MSN index generator

ranks those sites higher that are updated regularly, have high volume content

and have many sites link to it.

Ask Jeeves flagship search sites, ask.com and teoma.com, work on

the Teoma search technology. Based on the subject of search query, Teoma

organizes sites into naturally occurring communities. Its Subject-Specific

Popularity technique ranks sites by the number of same-subject pages that are

referenced by each site. Vivisimo's clusters free the user from the burden of

gleaning right information from the reams of it available on the Web. This

search engine gives high importance to the quality of resulting cluster

descriptions visible to the user.

The difference in searches arises from the frequency and

accuracy of the Web crawl, size, and type of index, ranking methods and

relevancy of information. Google is rated as the biggest search engine with an

index of more than 8 bn pages, as per the figures available with the Search

Engine Watch (an independent analyst of the search engine industry). The second

in line is MSN with 5 bn pages, followed by Yahoo with an estimated 4.2 bn and

Ask Jeeves at 2.5 bn. But, obviously, there is more to search than size.

Relevance matters.

And, on that parameter, there is a long way to go. I tried some

searches-'Natwar Singh Oil', 'Gandhi Information Technology' and 'search

engine industry size'-the first one to see if the web put out any historical

coverage of this issue. The second to see if anyone had at anytime linked the

Mahatma's economic philosophies with information technology (a very long shot)

and the last one to check if one could get a quick, specific, answer on what is

the size of this new industry (a very optimistic shot). The search was tried on

Google, MSN, Vivisimo, and Teoma.

The results were grey on all. 'Natwar Singh Oil' refused to

give any more information than the current news coverage from across the globe.

'Gandhi Information Technology' gave many names of educational institutes,

and the search engine query gave nothing with pinpoint accuracy. There were many

other advanced options that were not tried. And this is not meant to be a

comprehensive testing of search engines.

But one thing was obvious. Search engines have a long way to go. So do the

searchers. We all like quick and clean information. That is simply not there. So

the next time you are searching for options, try the advanced searches and be

imaginative. Who knows what you may uncover?