Re: Altavista better than Google for genealogy searches

Renia wrote:
> I searched for "family tree" in "exact phrase" plus "growdon" in "all of

> these words" and got 431 results on Altavista. 357 on Google.

The thing that doesn't seem to be mentioned in all the comparisons is 
this - it's not the number of hits, it's the quality of hits that 
counts, and their categorisation. In other words, if you're faced with 
10,000 hits, you're going to want them sorted by relevance, and you 
aren't interested in duplicate pages.

A good search engine won't just present you with 10,000 hits in random 
order, it will give you what it "thinks" is the best order for you. If 
it does it both honestly (putting the commercially-interesting ones 
first is what killed Altavista) and accurately, it's a far more useful 
engine, even if another engine gives you 12,000.

Also, a good search engine can spot that one page is so like another 
that it's not worth showing both. This is one reason why Google doesn't 
throw up as many results as some other search engines - it does that 
correlation for you, saving you a lot of effort looking through twenty 
pages that are basically derivatives or copies of each other. Ever 
noticed that "Google has omitted 234 pages that are similar to this one, 
click here to see them" message?

Please don't get seduced into "my search engine's bigger than your one" 
games! As often in life, it's not the size, it's the quality, and how 
you use it. :)

John
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