uTest released a study they named “Battle of the Search Engines” which measured the relevancy of Google, Yahoo, and Bing based on “search results accuracy, page load speed, real-time relevance and usability.” The report found that there were over 600 “bugs” found in the test. By “bug” I believe they mean links that lead to dead ends, i.e. broken links. I am not exactly sure how that measures “relevancy” of the search result, but it does tell us some things.
In any event, here are the key points from the survey:
- 71% of respondents stated search results accuracy as the most important when choosing their search engine.
- In overall accuracy, Google led the way with a top two box score (those rated as “excellent” or “good”) of 90%. Caffeine followed with 83%. Yahoo & Bing trailed with 53 and 42%, respectively.
- Bing had the most reported bugs; however, it scored very high for usability and pics/vids search
- More than 30% noted that Bing surprised them favorably; and 10% said that after testing all three engines, they would make Bing their default engine.
Here is the break down by search engine:
- 130 bugs reported
- 8 percent classified as “showstoppers”
- 28 percent were Technical, 46 percent were Functional, and 26 percent were GUI
Bing
- 321 bugs reported
- 14 percent classified as “showstoppers”
- 29 percent were Technical, 46 percent were Functional, and 25 percent were GUI
Yahoo
- 70 bugs reported
- 10 percent classified as “showstoppers” and 50 percent as “high severity”
- 28 percent were Technical, 57 percent were Functional, and 15 percent were GUI
For the full report, click here do download the PDF.
Related Topics: Stats: Relevancy
The Bing image search is probably human edited, which just does’t scale well.
For an accurate, non-biased comparison try this out,
http://blindsearch.fejus.com/