| OregonCity.com | |
The following review and comparison of Search Engines reveals disappointing results for Google who recently made changes to the way they rank search results. However, a good surprise is the strong showing of Microsoft's new Search Engine. Google results are now manipulated using mysterious "qualities". Some qualities are effected by human intervention. As a result, Google has become less useful due to either ineptitude or bias.
Five search phrases were used to test major search engines. Obviously, here at OregonCity.com, we consider "Oregon City" to be an important search phrase. Any search engine that fails to reveal OregonCity.com in their rankings is failing to serve their users. All the search engines revealed OregonCity.com in their search results except Google. Five different searches failed to reveal any target websites. LookSmart and Ask each failed once. Google failed three times.
The worst "successful" search was on Google which returned a target website for "Oregon Computer Consultant" ranked at #360. Therefore, we set the best search scores at 360 points. When a number one rank was returned, the search engine scored 360 points. A number two rank scored 359 points, ...etc.
First Hit rule: Some Search Engines did better than these scores indicate because they returned multiple hits. Only the first hit was used for calculating a score. We made one exception for Microsoft's Search Engine. The search for "Oregon City" revealed a hit early in the results. We averaged that rank with the rank that revealed OregonCity.com. Otherwise Microsoft's score would have been higher if we stuck to the first hit rule.
I chose the following five phrases based on my work experience and hobbies. In addition to "OregonCity.com", I expect these search phrases to reveal one or more clubs or associations that I use frequently. Anything less is a disservice to those of us who use Search Engines.
Oregon City
Oregon Computer Consultant
Small Business Server Consultant
Oregon Pigeon Club
Oregon High School Football
| Phrase | MSN | Yahoo | AltaVista | Overture | GigaBlast | Ask | LookSmart | |
| Oregon City |
96 |
128 |
129 |
143 |
237 |
NR |
136 |
NR |
| Oregon Computer Consultant |
2 |
7 |
8 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
13 |
360 |
| Small Business Server Consultant |
7 |
4 |
4 |
6 |
54 |
4 |
62 |
NR |
| Oregon Pigeon Club |
38 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
3 |
1 |
1 |
19 |
| Oregon High School Football |
1 |
143 |
152 |
139 |
103 |
98 |
NR |
NR |
| Higher Scores are Better |
1661 |
1522 |
1511 |
1508 |
1399 |
1331 |
1232 |
343 |
Target Websites include:
http://oregoncity.com
http://nwhelp.com
http://wizardfinder.com
http://nwpigeonfanciers.com
http://ceremonydove.com
http://technologywizards.com
Future test phrases may include:
Oregon Snow Ski
...Google is dishonest or inept. Some of the best information, like our "Snow Ski" page, is found on "little guys" web sites like this one. But we have never been willing to buy a Google listing and Google has never listed oregoncity.com in any of the many years we've been online. In other words, avoid Google and use other search engines if you want to find the best websites.