Google, the world's most popular search engine, is scaling new heights these days. Born out of a project work carried out by Larry Page (Page) and Sergey Brin (Brin), both Stanford dropouts, Google has come a long way; from a small information search technology on the web to the world's most popular and mostly referred search engine.
Google search is an easy-to-use service which gives the results of a query in a fraction of a second. Millions of browsers prefer Google over search engines such as AltaVista, Infoseek, Netscape and Lycos. Not only does Google rank much higher than other search engines in terms of efficiency and effectiveness, but it also scores over others in terms of layout due to its uncluttered look (Exhibit I gives a comparison of popular search engines).
Google searched more than three billion web pages and processed more than 200 million search requests every day. The search engine could search for every possible file type on the World Wide Web, in 36 languages and provided interface in 86 languages.
Exhibit I
A Comparison of Various Search Engines
Search Engine Boolean Default Proximity Truncation Case Fields Limits Stop Sorting
Google -, OR and Phrase No, but stemming word in phrase No intitle inurl, inurl, link, site more Language, file, type, date domain Varies, + searches Relevance, Site
Yahoo! And or and Phrase No No intitle, url site, inurl link, more Language, file, type, date domain Very few Relevance, Site
Ask Jeeves/ Teoma -, OR and Phrase No No intitle, inurl Language, site, date Yes, + searches Relevance, metasites
MSN Search And, OR, Not, (), - and Phrase No No link site, locurl Language, site Varies, + searches Relevance, site, sliders
WiseNut – only and Phrase No No No Language Yes, + searches Relevance, site
Gigablast AND, OR, And NOT, ( ), +, – and Phrase No No title, site, ip Domain, type Varies, + searches Relevance
Exalead AND, OR, NOT ( ), – and Phrase Near