Yahoo beats Google in Web Search Fulfillment

[gford]

As I noted a few weeks ago, Google gets about 2/3rds of the web search volume. So from this perspective Google appears to dominate and have the most successful search engine. If volume is an indication of effectiveness, one might be ready to crown Google the best search engine. However, if we look at the numbers from a “search fulfillment” perspective by engine we get a very different story.

Yahoo! pretty much takes the cake on this one with about 75% of searches performed on Yahoo! in August resulted in a referral. By comparison, searches on Google result in a referral about 65% of the time and searches on MSN/Live result in a referral about 59% of the time. Lower search fulfillment numbers mean that on a percentage basis fewer search queries on that engine resulted in the searcher clicking on a result link. So from this perspective one might consider Yahoo! more effective at getting consumers the results they want.


Full Story (http://blog.compete.com/2007/09/26/search-queries-results-yahoo-google-msn-live/)

[AAZZ]

Hmm never really liked google that much but used it.
Might try yahoo next time and see differences when Im out hunting for site buying.

[rcj662]

Yahoo has some good results for some terms. Google has been showing some bad results after last update for some terms and alot of people use yahoo now.

Google still sends more traffic and you will always get more sales even though it is less percent wise to convert.

[joey112]

Yeh rightly so. As i have said for a while google is being manipulated by smart SEO experts. My site on cricket which has 50 pages of unique info. Is being outranked by a site with 4 lines of text on cricket. Go figure? Why would a visitor searching in cricket want 4 lines over 50 pages? they don't. It not accurate google. I have to go with yahoo for this.

[sandrodz]

Full Story (http://blog.compete.com/2007/09/26/search-queries-results-yahoo-google-msn-live/)

but as volume of queries on google is more, google's 65% is more then yahoos 75%

[Zibblu]

Google's search results are getting worse and worse in my opinion. They are playing too many games with webmasters and not doing their job. Their job is to give the best, most relevant search results.

For example when they don't put JohnChow.com up as #1 for a search for "John Chow" that is BS. JohnChow.com is the most relevant site for "John Chow" and showing anything else is a failure by Google.

[joey112]

Google's search results are getting worse and worse in my opinion. They are playing too many games with webmasters and not doing their job. Their job is to give the best, most relevant search results.

For example when they don't put JohnChow.com up as #1 for a search for "John Chow" that is BS. JohnChow.com is the most relevant site for "John Chow" and showing anything else is a failure by Google.

totally agree. the whole system is flawed and manipulated.

[QB Marketing]

Google's ability to provide good relevant SERPS is what has made it the powerhouse it is today. Can you really blame them for "punishing" someone for doing something they disagree with? They have to maintain their integrity or they will lose their value. Do I agree with everything Goggle has to say- no, but I do believe they have the right to ban sites for practices they believe are deceptive or unethical. If it ends up hurting their market share, they will likely change their minds and their practices.

[Zibblu]

Google's ability to provide good relevant SERPS is what has made it the powerhouse it is today. Can you really blame them for "punishing" someone for doing something they disagree with? They have to maintain their integrity or they will lose their value. Do I agree with everything Goggle has to say- no, but I do believe they have the right to ban sites for practices they believe are deceptive or unethical. If it ends up hurting their market share, they will likely change their minds and their practices.

If "punishing" webmasters gives less relevant search results (such as is obvious with the John Chow case) then this very "punishment" is hurting the relevancy of their SERPS. I don't see how this is maintaining any integrity. All they should be worrying about is the quality of their search results.

I've seen a lot of really really really bad results for some adult/sex enhancement searches and I get the feeling that they are going around trying to "punish" all of the adult sites and thus they are ending up with very irrelevant results for these searches. This kind of playing God is getting real old. Just give us the best results! Forget all of the other garbage.

[Sam Asante]

I always use google.
As does everybody I know.

[wisdomtool]

Google wins at areas where it matters most, get money into their pockets with some spare change for those in the adsense program :)

[Nosfer]

well i've started using Yahoo a couple of months ago because i use their mailing system a lot, and i was pretty pleased with their search fulfillments so from then... i've used Yahoo a lot.

[SlickR]

Yeh rightly so. As i have said for a while google is being manipulated by smart SEO experts. My site on cricket which has 50 pages of unique info. Is being outranked by a site with 4 lines of text on cricket. Go figure? Why would a visitor searching in cricket want 4 lines over 50 pages? they don't. It not accurate google. I have to go with yahoo for this.

Agreed. smart onsite and offsite SEO and a 5 lines of text site would win over 500 lines of text site.
5 pages site would win over 50 pages site.
long time not updated site would win over frequently updated site.

So yeah i'm also with yahoo on this one.
Google is loosing its core and that is to show quality and very realted search results.
I partially mention this in my post about google really relying too much on its pagerank to show results and thus bigger pagerank sites will always win over smaller pr sites even if the smaller site has a lot more in quality, quantity and updated content.
Check out my thread:
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=512823

[Lordy]

66 x 2/3rd is more than yahoos x 75 :p

[gford]

66 x 2/3rd is more than yahoos x 75 :p

So what?

I think the point is as more and more people become dissatisfied with results in any search engine they will try another. Customer loyalty will only last as long as the last group of successful searches.

Fail to find what you are searching for you can (a) modify your search or (b) try the search that failed on a different SE.

Assuming anyone tries (b), Yahoo retention would increase. I still prefer Google but I must admit I am seeing more and more problems with it. But I also see problems with Yahoo.

This study just shows that the gap between search engines search result fulfillment will continue to shrink unless there is a dramatic new algorithm finding.