Best Search Engines

Google isn't always enough

Google remains the established leader among search engines even though its market share has dropped slightly in recent surveys. Microsoft's search engine Bing has taken some of Google's share, while the rest of the market competes for what's left. Google handled 63.6 percent of the searches in the United States between May 2010 and May 2011. Bing's 17 percent share may seem small, but the Microsoft engine grew 75 percent over that year. Experts say Google's continued innovations are one reason it remains on top.

Reviewers like Google because it's easy to use, has a clean-looking start page and produces fast results. Recent innovations include desktop voice search, a carryover from Google's mobile search app. Users can speak a search command into a computer's microphone rather than typing a query. We looked at a hands-on test at Tech-Reviews.com that found voice search produced valid search results. The reviewer searched by saying the name of former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. The first page result was the Wikipedia entry on Brzezinski.

With Google's image search, you can now copy a picture into the search field to find both image and web page results. Google Instant displays and refines search results as you type.

Google's advanced search features provide a huge range of options. You can choose how many results to show per page and filter the results by date, file type, region, domain type and more. You can also exclude pages that include the words you specify. Experts also like the way Google lets you search inside books with Google Books, as well as search images, videos, blogs and even products for sale. Google Scholar helps you search academic and professional sources. Google is especially convenient to use if you add the Google Toolbar to your Firefox, Safari or Internet Explorer browser or use Google Chrome as your browser. (We have a separate report on web browsers.)

Google recently launched Google+, a social networking site that integrates with Google search. Reviewers have commented on the service itself -- most find it intriguing -- but haven't discussed its impact on search as yet.

Librarians at UC Berkeley call Google the best search engine for most purposes. The Daily Beast matches Google against Bing and the new search engine Blekko and finds that Google produces the most relevant results. The Daily Beast tests match a 2008 comparison tests at CrowdFlower.com which found that at least one of the top five results from Google is judged "highly relevant" for about 80 percent of queries. A PC World slideshow from 2009 compares Google to Bing and Yahoo. The reviewer picks Google for the best search results and best maps.

Among search engines, the real race is between Yahoo and Bing for the number two spot. Microsoft's revamped search engine, Bing, replaced Live.com in 2009. Since that time it has quickly earned fans and market share. Experts believe Bing's new social searching feature might put it ahead. Social searching collects data from your likes and searches and those of your Facebook friends to come up with more refined, personalized results, since it's likely that you will have many of the same likes and interests as your friends. If you find a useful website about lowering your monthly mortgage payment or cooking summer squash, your friends will probably want to see the same page if they do the same search.

Reviewers like Bing's suggested searches, which appear in a box in on the left side of the results page and tabbed search categories along the top of the page. When Bing was released, Michael Muchmore, the lead software analyst at PCMag.com, found that Bing's search results closely matched those on Google. In PC World's slideshow review, Bing leads in more categories than Google and Yahoo. The reviewer, Tom Spring, finds that Bing is best for airfare and pop culture searches as well as local searches and search refinement. Spring and reviewers on Viewpoints.com also enjoy the daily photos on Bing's start page. Each photo includes an informative pop-up description that appears when the user hovers over the image.

In 2010, Microsoft and Yahoo reached an agreement for Bing to power Yahoo's searches. Berkeley librarians recommend using Yahoo for second opinions during research. While many results will overlap, Yahoo will often find websites that a Google search didn't turn up. More than the other top search engines, Yahoo's start page works as a complete web portal. Logging into the page, users automatically see news and features, popular search trends and a full menu of the sites tools. Reviews praise the built-in Yahoo Pad. Editors at The Wall Street Journal like that this note-taking feature kicks in automatically if the user seems to be doing research.

The UC Berkeley library site recommends supplementing Google and Yahoo with a lesser-known search engine based in France, Exalead (free, http://www.exalead.com/search/). It has a clean, intuitive interface and makes it easy to add shortcuts to favorite sites. Quick searches of Wikipedia, the user-created online encyclopedia, are also built into Exalead.

Reviewers note that there are dozens more search engines available. These include many visual search engines that provide thumbnail views of web pages or organize search results in some visual manner. There are also loads of niche search engines that cover only specific topics. Our Useful Links section includes links to these specialized search engines.