Posts Tagged ‘Altavista’
A web search engine exists to do one main function: to assist users of the World Wide Web (internet) search for the information they need. We have become so used to search engines that we now rarely think about them as applications. Instead they are now seen as an integral part of the web. Please pause for a moment and imagine what the online world would be without search engines. Do you see my point? The internet is now unthinkable without the search engines!
Launched in the mid-seventies, the history of web search engines has Google as the eighteenth entrant in its application genre. Familiar names such as Dogpile, Magellan, Lycos, and AltaVista as its brother-applications predate it. Interestingly, all of the foregoing now hardly make a dent on the leadership which Google now enjoys. Magellan and many others have even been obliterated from the net and are now just part of online history.
A simple Alexa.Com check as I write this article has Google at the number one position– in terms of traffic rank in both worldwide and the US. Yahoo! is currently in number 4-worldwide, number 3-in the US, while MSN (Microsoft Network) is in number 9-worldwide, number 13-in the US.
About the Top Three Search Engines
MSN search has actually been recently renamed as Bing and re-launched by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on 28 May 2009. It has also been previously known by at least two other names: Live Search and Windows Live Search. Recent changes to its interface have been the inclusion of an “Explorer pane” which deploys a semantic algorithm technology that Microsoft bought from a little-known company called Powerset.
Yahoo! search was originally a web directory of online websites, presented in a hierarchical structure. Later in the later 1990s, it evolved to have a search interface. In 2001 its search-algorithm was one that came from a company called Inktomi; then later it even used the Google search-algorithm until 2004, when it began to use its own search “machine.” In 29 July 2009, Microsoft and Yahoo! joined forces, that they now have the Bing algorithm in common.
Google was created by partners Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who launched it on 15 September 1997. From a two-man operation, Google has grown to become the multi-billion company that it is today. The Google Search facility currently provides 22 special features which are beyond the original word-search capability. It integrates inclusions such as weather, stock quotes, time zones, sport scores, unit conversion, currency conversion, calculator, numeric ranges, dictionary lookup, maps, and many others. Basic options on its search facility such as Search Syntax, Query Expansion have made it the most used search engine worldwide. Its “I’m Feeling Lucky” option (according to estimates costs Google $110 million a year)– bypasses all advertising. Maybe Google considers the amount as a nice annual gift to the online community for making it number one.
Is It Still the Best Search Engine?
In terms of query volume, Google enjoys a whooping 85.35% share. Yahoo! garners a token 6.15% while Bing/MSN has an even lower 3.16%. Clearly Google remains the market leader; which is why online searches have become synonymous with a Google search. People now even say “Google it”– to mean conduct a web search for something. With its overwhelming popularity and irrefutable market leadership, effectiveness and ease of use, the Google Search engine is the clear choice of the majority of web users worldwide. The question, “Is Google Still the Best Search Engine?” therefore has an easy answer. Yes– it still (undeniably) is.