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Getting A Direct Answer From Google
By David Utter
Expert Author
Article Date: 2005-10-04
Search engines could be a lot more useful to people if they could provide a straight answer to a direct question.
PC World wrestled with the question of getting instant answers out of search engines. In a report, the magazine did an informal study of how Ask Jeeves, MSN Search, and Answer.com fared at answering questions.
They included queries to Google as a control; the author notes how Google's results "were almost identical to those of Answers.com." The reason, of course, is that Answers ‘enhances' its search results with Google search. I have to wonder if the author missed this or just didn't include it in the story.
Anyway, all three test sites along with Google fared the same at handling "natural-language questions." Ask Jeeves has long advertised itself as being able to work well with these types of queries, but only in recent months has their search technology become more effective.
The article summed up their general impressions of the four sites. They note MSN Search as being the fastest and Ask Jeeves as returning the most sponsored links. Google and MSN both correct misspellings and suggest alternatives on the first page of results.
About the Author:
David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. Email him here.
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