Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Searching #75 Google and Beyond

Exercises

1. 3 searches with Blindsearch. I did three searches...one on Order of Discalced Carmelite Seculars, one on kayaking in Houston, and one on wine in Texas. I was surprised that Yahoo did the best job with the Carmelite question. I chose Google for the other two questions, and that is my favorite search engine, but the results were very similar. Because the results were so similar, it probably won't prompt me to change my habits of searching very much. However, it would be fun to try Blindsearch when I get some really detailed reference questions and see what the results are then.

2. Hitwise. Which search engine is number one this week? Google wins by a landslide...71.61% to the second best Yahoo 14.76%. Yes, the results match my favorite search engine.

3. Since I use Google most often, I looked into the extra features for it, in case I am missing something I can use. There are many useful extras. The trick will be remembering to use the shortcuts...because really that is what most of them are....like definitions, weather for a certain place, the local time for a certain place, sports scores, calculator, synonyms, etc. It's all stuff I look for often, but don't use the Google features to find the information. I often use Google to find out how to spell something, and Google Earth is lots of fun. Google books can be useful, too.

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