Why use OTHER search engines?

Why do people(maybe you) use search engines other than google,yahoo, or MSN? I mean shouldn't you always use the best?

 

I used to Ask Jeeves (ask.com) stuff but more jokingly than anything else. It's true, most other search engines don't get much action at all, but they have to at least try!

 

i only use other search engines to get my sites indexed just incase they receive some sort of good feedback.

 

I use ONLY google.....

 

I use them. I don't like the thought of Google knowing everything about me. They already know what pants and shoe size I am, at least they'll be a few holes in the search queries I make


I also use them to see where my sites are ranking and to make sure their indexed there.

 

because of this search engine:
http://sfastnews.com/search/

 

I mainly use google but alltheweb is also pretty good

 

I use only google

 

only google. When something better comes along, then i'll switch.

 

I don't, I only use Google.

 

People are used to other SE`s from the old days. Thats why they use them.

 

Its depepend of my need. If i want to find rapidshare file, i'll go to www.avun.com, for mp3 file www.nur9.com otherwite Google of course

 

I use only Google & Yahoo, i never try other search engines,but i may use in future

 

The best for what?

For starters, just considering the top 5 search engines, they clearly get different results for different searches. If there was truly one best way to do web search algorithmically, (intellectual property notwithstanding), they'd all return the same stuff. It's not always true that one of them always gets the best stuff in the first couple of pages. (Of course, typically users often don't bother reading past the first few links.) For anyone serious about researching complicated questions, it's in their best interests to use multiple engines. And that's just for general web search.

When you get into the alternative or specialty search areas, it's even more important to look at alternative sources. Altsearchengines.com lists hundreds of search engines besides the top 5. A lot of them are re-hashed versions that use APIs from the majors. But many are not. Many offer something completely different. Look at technorati.com for blogs. While some may argue the point, they may do a better search on blogs then any of the majors. And what about something like online forums, none of the majors really look into forums at all. They may scan them at a page level, but to understand them down to the post level, you need something like Twing.com [Disclosure: I'm the Director, Product Managment for Twing.com so more than a bit biased here : ) ] And what about image or video search? Or music? Or legal documents? Or chemical analysis?

The point is, the major search engines don't cover everything. Or even if they do cover things at the page level, there's other, often better ways, to index and relevancy rank different types of content then page level. This will become more important over time as more and more stuff ends up on the web. It will take awhile for general web users to really understand this and seek out better sources. Those that do so sooner rather than later will likely be more effective searchers. As a result, anyone working in the information business with these sensibilities is likely to be more effective.

These are just some reasons for looking beyond one or two search engines.

Scott

 

I'm not affiliated with any Search Engines, though using the same Search Engine (regardless of whatever Search Engine that is) all the time, means you're only getting part of the story. GOOGLE isn't the best search engine merely because it's only -one- search engine, neither is Yahoo for the same reasons, nor any Search engine which stands alone, sure there's search engines which will search other areas of the Internet (e.g. File Transfer Protocol - FTP) - so different Search engines are usually required! Though I find for the purpose of research into web-related pages search engines which incorporate a number of other search engines are better than using one all the time.

 

Everybody has their preference and as long as they do, webmasters could be losing out on potential business and visitors.

 

I heard that dogpile is the best search engine since it has been conmsisted of results from yahoo, msn, google and askjeeves all in one search.

 

google is the best in quality and all factors

 

Not me. I only used the top three search engines.

 

you guys really should give other search engines a go.. an awesome one is mysearch.com most people use google because they dont know other search engines other than yahoo and the really famous ones... why WOULD you use google? they are making so much money out of you and you are support them like crazy. you should really give another search enigne a go, just use a different search engine other than google for like 2 days and see what happens