Search
engine can be categorized into 3 types based on the way index is built:
Crawler Based Search Engine: search engine such
as Google, Bing, Baidu etc, use a piece of software to “crawl” the web an
then index what it finds to build the search base. Web changes can be
automatically caught by crawler-based search engines and
will affect how these web pages get listed in the search
result.
Crawler
based search engines are good when you are looking for something very specific,
say “Hong Kong Public Libraries”, but it is not good to search general
topics, say “Search Engine”. A crawler based search engine can give
thousands of irrelevant search result with many in which the key word
appears only once.
Human-powered Directory: Yahoo!, Open
directory are popular search engines that depend on human editors to create
their listing. Changes made to individual webpages will not affect how the website is listed in the search result.
Human-powered
directories are good if you are looking for a generic topic, it can
usually help you to narrow down the list quickly.
A least
popular search engine is the “Meta-search
engine”. It transmits user-supplied keywords simultaneously to several
individual search engines to actually carry out the search. Search results
returned from all the search engines can be integrated, duplicates can be
eliminated and additional features such as clustering by subjects within the
search results can be implemented by meta-search engines.
Another way to look
at categorizing search engine is through the purpose of the search:
General Purpose: Google, Bing!, Yahoo, Baidu and most of the names we know
and use in everyday life belong to the general search topic, users can search
everything they are interested in;
Specific Purpose: users may go to certain search engine for a specific
purpose, the most common case is job search, indeed.com, glassdoor.com, JobDB.com etc are popular poaces to
search for opening option at a location and in certain roles; Google
News, Yahoo News and others are popular places to look for news.
A third
way to group search engine will be through the data type:
Maps: these search engines are specifically used to
find locations, typical examples include Apple Map, Google Map, OpenStreetMap
etc.
Multi-media: searches for images, videos are done via
multi-media search such as Google Image, Veveo etc.
Price: these are search engines that help users find
the price offered on the same product across the different merchants, popular
ones include Google Shopping, Kelkoo, Pronto.com etc
Market
Search of the Different Web Search Engine and Their Growth:
Google:
Google represents the majority of the global search traffic; of all
the 1.2 trillion requests more than 50% comes from outside United
States
Bing: Over
85% of the Bing users are in United States; according to research, most of them
are blue-collar, over 35 years old female who have children.
Yahoo:
news shows that most Yahoo users are from Asian countries, Hong Kong is one of
the area Yahoo Search is widely used. Yahoo users demonstrate similar
demographics as Bing users: blue-collar, over 35 years old female
who have children.
Baidu: it
is a primarily Chinese product with over 95% of the traffic made in
China.
Browser Market Share (2014-2016)
Homepage Comparison:
Background
Color: Bing is the only one that did not use a white background and also
the only one that did not put the search bar in the central of the page. The
other 3 all adopted the white background. All follows the “Above the fold”
principle, having no content under the first screen of the homepage. Bing’s
page load slower due to the additional assets to be presented, and
the fact that the image change for every refresh further slow done the speed.
Baidu is
the only one that have QR code on the homepage to download Baidu mobile
app, which confirm the fact that China is one of the most mobile active
country.
Links to
Other Products: links to other products on a search engine reflects the most
popular family product the search engine operator has. While Google and
Bing focus on search and productivity tools (Email, Document
editor etc), Yahoo and Baidu focus on News and shopping.
- Google: Gmail, Image
- Bing: Image, Video, News, Explore, MSN, Office Online, Outlook.com
- Yahoo: News, Financial News, Entertainment News, Style, Movie, Sport, Mobile, Dictionary, Auction, Groupbuy
- Baidu: Nuomi Shopping, News, hao123 Directory, Map, Video, BBS
Search “iPhone 7” (English)
Search “Spring Festival” (Chinese)
Search “Spring Festival” (Chinese)
Common findings:
Bing comes
out with the smallest number of search in both test. 20.1% of Google when
searching “Iphone 7”, only 3.45% of Google when searching for
"Spring Festival”.
English
sites are rated low for Baidu even if I type in iPhone 7 in English, confirming
the primary user as Chinese. While other sides don’t manipulate the rank.
Images are
positioned higher in Yahoo and Baidu, which predominantly search Chinese users,
reflecting the fact that Chinese are more prone to visual than people from
other countries.
Merchant
advertisement on the top for all search engines, while Yahoo allows as many as
7 slots for Ad, Google only 1. It Money oriented is indeed the top 1 design
principle for Hong Kong. Actually it is better to say this apply to all Chinese, Baidu went
one step further to dedicate a section for totally not related products, with
images showing desktops etc.
Baidu
filled its first result page with as much as possible its self-contained
contents (BBS Post; images etc) for the iphone7 search. While others do
honestly search the web.
Bing and
Baidu provides suggestion to related search words.
Yahoo has
a persistent Top 10 Hot Search Terms, further confirming its intension to lure
users to deviate from their task and go to read irrelevant contents.
Unique Findings:
Baidu has
done certain customization related to Chinese contents. For example, the
calendar presentation and the Spring Culture links are unique for Baidu to
serve Chinese users. Out of curiosity, I searched Abraham Lincoln on Bing but didn’t
find similar behavior.
As a
summary, to use Search Engine for general purpose and search English word,
Google is definitely the best choice, Baidu is useful when
searching contemporary Chinese content in Simplified Chinese and
last, if you have nothing to do and just want to read some amusing gossip,
Yahoo is definitely the place to go.
Reference:
List of
Search Engine
A Comparison of
Search Engine for Finding Resources
Search Engine Marker
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Google vs Bing Which
One Are Your Customers Using