The Blind Search Engine Taste Test

August 19th, 2009 by Erin Posted in Technology | No Comments »

I don’t know where the folks at Tech Crunch find this stuff – but this is pretty darn cool.

The next time you find yourself procrastinating on a project, check out the blind search tool.

This web application – created “just for fun” by a Microsoft developer – provides results from Google, Yahoo, and Bing in three columns but doesn’t tell you which column is which search engine. You can then “vote” for the column you think has the best results. It’s then revealed which results came from which engines.

I gave it a try with the search term “web applications” and chose Google. On the second round, using “top recipes”, I chose Bing.

Seriously. Someone could design a whole college course around this site. It’s quite a study in how we use and perceive the mighty search engine powers that be, namely Google.

Michael Arrington at Tech Crunch elaborates, saying that according to a few search engine experts, users tend to think Google results are better simply because they’re coming from Google.  If you slap a Google logo on Yahoo results – it will test better than Google results with a Yahoo or Bing logo.

With this blind search engine taste test, however, there is no branding therefore you must really think about which results you like better.

The site used to feature a “results” page which displayed a percentage distribution of votes. Early results initially showed this breakdown: Google: 44%, Bing: 33%, Yahoo 23%.

The results feature was subsequently removed when people found a way to game it.

I highly recommend giving this blind search tool a try to find out which search engine suits you.

You may be surprised – like I was – that it’s not Google.

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