Thursday, November 02, 2006

Google v. Live Search

Microsoft has been pushing its Live Search engine recently, including an amusing ad I saw in today's paper not-so-subtly referring to Google several times, e.g.:

"It takes more than a complicated mathematical equation"

"Nothing spurs innovation like a little competition between companies that have been known to hire some pretty sharp people."

So which is better? Hard to say, and with search engines evolving so much into other areas (e.g., map views, video, etc.) it may depend on what type of information you're trying to find.

But just for fun I ran a search on "personnel assessment" on both engines. Here's what Google returned:

1. Hr-guide.com
2. IPMAAC
3. Wonderlic
4. A British professional organization
5. A British testing firm
6. A Canadian government site
7. Same as #6, different part of site
8. A school in The Netherlands
9. A U.S. consulting firm
10. A Russian consulting firm

How international! Let's see what Live Search comes up with:

1. IPMAAC
2. A British consulting firm
3. A HVAC training organization
4. A U.S. consulting firm
5. Another U.S. consulting firm
6. A Russian consulting firm
7. The State of Oklahoma's personnel shop
8. A U.S. consulting firm
9. A U.S. consulting firm
10. A British consulting firm

So which is better? Depends what you're looking for. At this point at least, Google's top matches have more to do with information and less with consulting firms.

This can and does change over time, so I'll do this again in the future and see how they match up.

(BTW, if you don't already know, Google has another search engine in the works, or at least in the testing phase. Check out
Searchmash ).

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