Comparison Of Search Engines

Comparison of Search Engines:

Altavista, Yahoo, and Excite

Internet Exploration Project: Search Engine Analysis

Introduction

The use of search engines on the Internet is a very significant aspect towards attaining information ranging from research purposes, like stock quotes, to daily use such as the weather in your hometown. The ability to find information on these engines all depend on experience, knowledge of certain search techniques, and remembering the strengths and advantages of each engine for particular information.

For my assignment, I have chosen to compare and contrast three popular search engines, Altavista, Yahoo, and Excite. Through the search of information on tourism in Taiwan, which I had little knowledge of before hand and to prepare me for my latter summer vacation, I recorded the engines’ advantages and disadvantages, their features, and the amount and quality of information they produced.

Review’s Intended Audience

The review of these three search engines is intended for any individuals who use the Internet for information purposes. The audience can range from beginners of the Internet to experienced individuals who use the Internet everyday such as for research projects. All users of search engines should be able to locate information they need easily through the education of advanced searching techniques. Hopefully this review can assist others on the advantages and disadvantages of these three search engines in their future information retrieval purposes.

Resource’s Intended Audience

The resources included in this review are intended for members of the community who are interested in the country of Taiwan and would like to learn more about this secluded territory. The information includes factual information such as political issues, social themes, and educational facts. The main focus of the review is toward the tourism aspect of Taiwan. There are many advertisements of travel agencies, hotels, and other tourist attractions. Individuals who are planning or interested in visiting Taiwan should take the time to review the information here to help them plan for their trip or to assist them to decide on a trip to Taiwan.

Investigation

For each search engine, I applied the same techniques and recorded their results. The techniques included:

Basic Terms and Phrase Advanced Boolean Searches

Tourism in Taiwan Taiwan+Tourism

Tourism "Taiwan+Tourism"

Travel Taiwan|Tourism

Taiwan Taiwan and Tourism

I also included the extra search features each search engine provided on their main pages, for

example a travel section or vacation section that would be relevant to my research purposes on

information for traveling in Taiwan. I then noted for each engines, any problems or difficulties I

encountered with them.

Search Engines

AltaVista www.altavista.com

In comparison with Yahoo and Excite, I believe the best search engine out of the three is Altavista. When phrases and terms were entered into the search engine more hits appeared in Altavista than the others did. In addition, when the searches became advanced there were still more hits in the Altavista engine. There seem to be an abundant amount of information in Altavista compared to the other two engines. The mass amount of hits may be disadvantageous resulting in more time spent to view, but it certainly is better than having too few hits and no information to work with. The information viewed in the hits contained significant data on Taiwan, ranging from about the economy, social and political facts, and the desired knowledge of tourism in the country. The hits contained advice on visiting Taiwan for foreigners and some hits were detailed to the point of giving information based on certain regions of Taiwan. Altavista also includes in its engine a section of extra answers to entered searches. This part included travel information such as hotel accommodations, transportation, ethnic cuisine, and tourist packages and also web pages of past visitors. Another section, the do’s and do not’s, gave advice on language, body manners, and social attitudes. On the main page of Altavista, there is a travel link where more hits can be achieved on tourism in Taiwan, which are different than the hits give before when an individual directly enters terms to search for. Overall, the Altavista search engine gave me a satisfied search with the information I needed for my trip.

Yahoo www.yahoo.com

The search engine, Yahoo, had a different set-up when presenting its search results. For example, Altavista presented its hits by web pages while Yahoo divides the searches into sites, category matches, and web pages. This technique by Yahoo separating the data is useful for individuals who know specifically what they are researching and the information they are looking for. The downfall of this search engine is the amount of insignificant information from the searches. When the searches of tourism in Taiwan were entered the hits included tourism about other countries and web pages that did not connect at all with the desired search. There was also the issue of the limited number of sites found with the advanced search compared to Altavista. Yahoo incorporates a section of related news to user's searches, for example with Taiwan; there was information on tourism in other Asian countries, but no additional information on Taiwan. There was also a travel agent link on the main page that lead to commercial sites and more travel information such as recommended restaurants and popular tourist sites.

Excite www.excite.com

Excite provides a wide array of information and more selections of gathering information with different techniques. Excite presents its results by topic sections and then the user must click on the topic to view more hits. In addition, the search engine lays the results with a summary section, a titles only section, or a web site section. Along with an advanced search