Internet Search Engine
Alternatives

The primary site for most PC users is a search engine. Search engines like Google, Cuil, Bing, Yahoo, Dogpile, Clusty, Ask, and AtlaVista are web sites that gather information on all Internet web sites and create key word indexes that point to that information. Thus by typing in those key words, you are directed immediately to web pages and sites containing that relevant information. This is different from Wikipedia.com which provides encyclopedia like explanations and links to relevant web pages.

Most people use Google to search the Internet for information. However, similar to most of the news, Google has a liberal bias so you may not get complete and unbiased information from a Google search. Also Google tracks information from searches. This was recently used by a Senior Presidential adviser to say that the economy was getting better because there were fewer Google searches for “Economic Depression”. As an amateur statistician I wonder if the change was statistically significant or just a smaller number than before. My guess is that there were increased searches for bonehead politician or bonehead Obama Adviser in place of “Economic Depression” so we are definitely nowhere close to recovery yet.

One problem with Google is search overload. Too many links pop up and it takes looking hard to find truly relevant information. Dogpile - searches several search engines, Ask - a plain language search, Cuil - provides more privacy, and Yahoo have similar information overload issues. If you are desperate to find something, then use them all.

Generally only the first three key words or at most four key words impact your search. Sometimes the most used key word smothers results for the other key words. Enter Clusty the clustering search engine. Clusty groups results to cut down on clutter. This is appears to be the most effective and helpful. So when searching for Magellan groups are Ferdinand Magellan, GPS, Venus, Travel, and more. Google had more of a list starting with Magellan GPS. To be sure the other common search terms were listed by Google in effect mimicking Clusty.

Microsoft’s new search engine is Bing. When first opened it displays some great pictures and is advertised to be a bit more focused in finding answers relevant to the search keywords. When searching for Magellan, it was no better than Google, Clusty and the rest. Try using Google, Bing and Clusty and searching on your name. Just to be sure I am not the Pete Moulton on the skateboard in the videos that Google found. Did that once in the 80’s and near killed myself. That was enough.

It looks like Bing, Google and Clusty find similar results for multiple key word searches, I tried solar power attic fan. Both Google and Bing served up similar results with pay per click sales links at the top. Google presented some video links at the bottom while the video links were found after one click on Bing. Clusty seemed to organize the information better making it easier to navigate. This surprised me. What? I am supposed to know this? Hardly, there is way too much to know about computers and the Internet!

Trying an impartiality test, I searched for Global Warming. Bing had a link to the Global Warming hoax site and Google had a Global Warming Fraud document. Clusty required some clicks to get to this information. Want the real truth! Here it is. Since the 80’s where the Global temperature charts start the alarm bells chiming, the population of the planet earth increased from around 4 Billion to 6 Billion people. That increase alone added about one third to the carbon dioxide output of the planet! Maximum planet population is estimated to be 12 Billion. So the planet is going to get warmer and we will all need strong deodorant. But the industrialized world is not to blame. It is exponentially increasing population. So they all have it wrong!