Google vs. Ask Gunfight

At the WWW '06 Conference in Edinburgh, I had a very nice conversation with a gentleman working for Ask, the search engine formerly known as AskJeeves.com. He encouraged me to conduct an experiment for some number of searches, comparing Google's results with Ask's results. I am doing that now.

Before any searches, it should be noted that when I went to www.ask.com, I was automatically redirected to uk.ask.com, and given a choice by radio button to search in just the UK or to search the entire Web. That in itself is nice. I appreciate being given a choice.

Search 1 - Workshop on Weblog Ecosystem

Google's results had a link to the 2006 Workshop as the second result, Ask's results didn't have a link to the 2006 workshop on the first page. Google didn't have any ads among the results, the Ask page had two ads on the top, and two ads on the bottom. The ads were in the same style (font, size, etc.) as the results, which obscured the fact that they were ads. Google 95 (5 points deducted for not having the most current workshop as the first result), Ask 70 (20 points deducted for not having the most current result on the first page, 10 points deducted for the first workshop main page being the sixth result.

Search 2 - "Douglas Allchin"

I did this search earlier today when I read a post at the Kool Aid Report mocking Douglas Allchin to scorn for whining about why there has to be a winner at American Idol. Allchin's letter was exalted as the Letter of the Day by the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Both Google's results and Ask's results returned pertinent results, both for the first result and the first page in general. Google seemed to focus more on Allchin's personal sites, while Ask seemed to focus more on sites related to his occupation as a professor at the University of Minnesota. I'm not really sure if one is better. But one thing definitely in Ask's favor, as far as I'm concerned, was that Ask returned Allchin's letter to the Star-Tribune as one of the first page of results, while Google did not. In fact, Allchin's letter to the Star-Tribune didn't appear in the first 10 pages of Google results. There were no ads on the Ask result page. Google 80, (20 points off for not having the Star-Tribune letter in the first ten pages of results), Ask 100.

Search 3 - "Willam Safire" "Douglas Bass"

This was a stupid search, but it was one I did nonetheless, because I was hoping that William Safire would publish my email to him about the post "God, Paul and Popeye." Google's results picked up the Crossword Bebop post, while Ask's results did not. Google picked up the Technorati page for the tag "apostle." My post had the Technorati tag "apostle Paul" at the end. Google's results were more pertinent than Ask's. Google 100, Ask 80 (20 points off for not picking up two pertinent results.)

Search 4 - Albert Einstein absence of God

I did this search because I received an email from an enthusiastic person who believed this exchange between Albert Einstein and an atheistic professor actually happened. This person has sent me things that have proven to be urban legends in the past, so I tested this one as well. Both Google's results and Ask's results gave the Snopes rebuttal as the first result, but Google had more pertinent results on the first page. Ask had some other Einstein quotes, and a John Steinbeck quote about God. Google 100, Ask 75 (5 points off for each nonpertinent result on the first page.)

Search 5 - Churches on fire for God in Edinburgh

I did this search because I was looking for a church that I might attend on Sunday. I didn't really have a good handle on where I was on Sunday. I was actually in Leith, not Edinburgh. Google's results contained one pertinent result, and another pertinent result in an ad on the right side. Ask's results contained two pertinent results, and the ad in Google's results was one of Ask's results. Google 55 (5 points off for each non-pertinent result), Ask 65 (5 points off for each non-pertinent result, 5 points added for having one of Google's ads as a result.)

At this point, Google leads by 3 searches to 2. I will add up the points at the end. It's not a wipeout by any means. I'm going to break this up into two posts, because this is getting a bit long, and there's a whiskey tasting session going on in the basement of the Edinburgh International Conference Center.

UPDATE: Welcome Instapundit Readers! If you found this post interesting, you might be rewarded to consider the liveblogging of the first plenary session of the WWW '06 Conference in Edinburgh, including Sir David Brown's talk about, among other things, "the devices formerly known as mobile phones."

Google Ask