By far, the most popular search engine is Google. There are several reasons for this. First of all, Google has invested a lot of money in developing algorithm technology that will give users the listings they want. Google has also developed a unique style, including text-only advertising. This makes for pages that load quickly and don’t contain offensive or obtrusive pictures. Because customers like this type of search experience, they’ve begun to overwhelmingly prefer Google as a search engine of choice.
There are a few search engines that are based on Google. These sites use the Google technology in order to provide their searches. Some examples of these are AOL Search and MySpace search. These search engines work in almost the same way as Google at retrieving information, even if they don’t look the same.
In the United States, Google takes up almost half of the search engine market. That means, for every search done on a search engine in the United States, nearly one in two is done with Google. Following Google is Yahoo! Search with about 24% of searches, and MSN with about 10%. AOL rounds out this list with about 6% of searches. Worldwide, Google takes an even bigger share of the market with up to 56% of worldwide searches.
While Google does dominate both the domestic and foreign search market, there are other general search engines out there that aim to search the web keywords entered. There are many sites that are based on Yahoo! technology, which is the second most popular search engine domestically and worldwide. These sites include AltaVista and AllthWeb.
There are also search engines based on MSN technology. While Windows Live (MSN) does have a smaller corner of the market, their technology is used by other search engines like A9. Ask also has several search engines based on their technology, including iWon and Lycos. Then there are whole subcategories of search engines that look at topics and information that is much more specific. After all, if a user is searching for a job, would he or she want to search on Google or on a site that only has job postings? Below are some common search engine types and for what information they search.
Job search engines: Many people use job search engine sites to look for work or career-related information. These sites generally let users choose listings based on qualifying data like location, salary, and relevant keywords like “sales” or “management.” Some notable job search engines are Monster, HotJobs (which is owned by Yahoo!), and CareerBuilder.
Multimedia search engines: While some people may want text-based information, some people may want to find pictures, videos, or sound files instead. High speed internet is growing and more people have access to more bandwidth as prices for this service have dropped. This increasing ability to handle information makes for more possibilities for multimedia. Many search engines also allow users to search for multimedia within their search engine.
Google, for example, has an image and video search option. AltaVista allows users to search for images, videos, and sound files like MP3s. Ask allows users to search for images as well as blog posts. There are some sites specifically for multimedia searching. Notable examples are Blinkx which lets users search for video, FindSounds, which searches sound files, PodScope, which searches for video and sound files, and PicSearch, which lets the user search for pictures.
Comparison shopping search engines: These search engines allow users to find the products they want to buy, then gives them tools to find the best products for them. These sites will generally let users compare prices on specific items from several different online stores. Some even calculate shipping and allow users to give feedback on online merchants to comment on their goods and service. Many will also recommend similar products, product accessories, or have other shopping-based tools that aim to serve the online shopper.
Notable comparison shopping sites include Google Product Search, formerly known as Froogle. Google combined their searching strength with comparison shopping in order to create this search engine. Kelkoo is a Yahoo! company that specializes in online buying worldwide. ShopWiki allows users to browse for products by category and specialize their product searches. Other companies include MySimon and Shopzilla.
There are many more kinds of search engines out there. Search engines can get fairly specialized. As long as there is a kind of data to be retrieved, someone will create a search engine to fill that demand. That way medical personnel, businesspeople, lawyers, accountants, and people in real estate all have specialized search engines devoted to them to help them find the information they need.
February 20th, 2010 
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