Alright, let's try this again

In my reply to my most recent post comparing Powerset , Yahoo and Google Mark Johnson who is a product manager at Powerset replied to the post with some information.

Mark, I will admit. Powerset's enhanced pages and navigation is great. They are wonderful and, add a lot to the pages you are looking at. However, the search engine itself is still a bit of a concern to me. I will do a second comparison of the three engines still using Powerset, Yahoo and Google (making sure to add; “site;wikipedia.org” in Yahoo and Google). This time, I won't ask the full question. I'll just type in “first radio broadcast” and see what comes up.

Alright. Time to test out Powerset – Wikipedia's own search engine.



This time, my search did work out a little better. However, the exact thing I was looking for did not show up. The only really helpful article on the first page of search results was the article on Reginald Fessenden who is known as “the Father of radio broadcasting”. However, the answer I'd like to see is when was the first radio broadcast?

I'm going on the hypothetical assumption I'm acting as a student in school doing a report. I know well enough that they never want to read full articles. They want to see a result that gives them their answer fast. Lazy? Yes. Welcome to the internet age, I guess?

Alright, time for Yahoo.



As you can see, my wonderful graphics program (AKA Paint) has circled some key things. First, I noted I did use the site command in my Yahoo search. Second, the two articles circled in red. These are the articles that are the most helpful on Wikipedia for my search. Neither of those two articles showed up in the Powerset search for Wikipedia.

It is time to check Google.



Google received my “gold star” (don't we love my graphics?) . The first article that showed up in Google was the History of Radio. This also showed up in Yahoo search. However, it did not show up in Powerset. The only helpful article Powerset showed me was the one on Reginald Fessenden.

Google and Yahoo both indeed won this second time around.

Even as the Wikipedia search engine, I can definitely see room for improvement. Now, I am all about being fair to Powerset. So, if any of you readers or listeners out there would like to see me use these three search engines for another inquiry feel free to suggest it. We'll do the same comparison with that inquiry as well.