Search for ’search’ on Google
I noticed something interesting the other day. As of now, searching for ’search’ on Google yields an interesting order of web pages.
- MSN Search
- Search.com
- Myspace Search
- My Excite
- Yahoo! Search
- Yahoo! home page
- Go.com
- IMDB.com
- AltaVista
This is interesting in a number of ways.
First, Google is not first on the list. I hope that this right there helps to show people that Google’s algorithms for page ranking don’t really include buying positions. If they did, wouldn’t they just always put Google.com first?
It’s interesting to see that of the top 3 search engines, Yahoo! is ‘ranked’ the lowest in the result listing. However, it seems to have 2 different pages vying for position.
I don’t regard the high ranking of Search.com all that intriguing considering that the URL contains the term. Also ’search’ shows up 7 times in the web page title and snippet shown by Google.
There are some surprises on this list. In retrospect, seeing Myspace.com search up there isn’t too strange but it was a shock at first glance. IMDB.com’s place on the list is another testament to the place of authority it has attained.
The remaining URLs are all search engines that I wasn’t even sure if they still existed. Go.com was a failed experiment from many years ago. Perhaps it remains up so high because it’s a top-level domain for most ABC/Disney traffic. Excite.com must be one of the last remaining late-90’s style web portals. And finally we come to AltaVista, which harkens back to the days of Lycos, HotBot, and other “first-generation” search engines. My guess is that AltaVista is still there for the only reason I ever go there: translation.
ome-like nature