Which search engine is the best?
The web has grown from a single website in 1997 (World Wide Web Project) to more than a billion unique host names today. Around three quarters of those are inactive sites—parked domains and the such—but that still leaves over a quarter of a million sites. If you visited 10 different websites each day, it would take you roughly 70 years to get through them all, and that's only if no more sites are added. Yeah, fat chance of that happening!
Now imagine having to crawl each website, catalog the content, and then memorize the URL of each one so that if someone asks where they can find information about Siamese cats or what to do if stung by a scorpion, you can rattle off a list of appropriate URLs. Even Rain Man would be intimidated with such an impossible task.
Not to worry, there are better ways to the surf the web. Whenever we need to look up something online, we simply type our query into a search engine and wait for the results. On a high-speed connection, you can expect thousands and even millions of results in under a second—that's pretty miraculous, when you think about it.
Google is the only search engine that's generally accepted as a verb, as in, "Hey Bob, did you ever get around to Googling the honey badger video I told you about?" However, it's not the only search engine in town. Microsoft's Bing and Gabriel Weinberg's DuckDuckGo are two of the more popular alternatives, and like Google, each wants to be your go-to search engine.
Is one better than the other? That's a great question, so we set about tackling it by comparing the three competitors. We came up with several categories that are relevant to today's search queries, and then had each of the candidates show us their stuff. Hit the jump as we separate the contenders from the pretenders!
Accuracy
Determining accuracy is arguably the single most important aspect of evaluating a search engine, so we decided to jump right into the thick of things. Unfortunately, this is also the most challenging category, as it requires a fair amount of subjective analysis. With that in mind, we tried several different queries to see if any of the search engines stood out with more relevant results to what we had in mind.
We started off easy by searching for the time in Ecuador. All three search engines came back with the correct time, though only Google gave us the result before we were finished typing, let alone had a chance to click the search button.
This was followed by a search for Rowland High School, which is actually John A. Rowland High School, though we figured dropping the "John A." at the beginning shouldn't be problematic. And it wasn't. All three found the school in question, though DuckDuckGo opted to post a Wikipedia summary and an advertising link at the top of the results, whereas both Google and Bing plopped the school's homepage URL at the top. Bing did slightly better by also including a Facebook link on the first page -- Google made us go to the second page for it.
We tried several other searches, including the copying and pasting of a line from a recent article on our website. All three sites found the correct article, though only Google highlighted the line in the summary underneath the URL. Bing and GoGoDuck both didn't include the line in the summary. Why does this matter? If you're looking up an article based on a quote that stands out for whatever reason, only Google's presentation lets you know that it's found the correct URL before clicking through.
Switching our attention to breaking news, it was pretty much a wash between all three, even with only just minimal information. On the same day that a man armed with a small knife tried breaking into the White House, we performed a simple search for "White House" and all three came back with relevant news links for the breaking story.
Winner: Draw
Image and Video Search
Evaluating image and video search results is a little easier than analyzing general accuracy—either a search engine finds the media you're looking for or it doesn't. We took off the gloves and starting with a search for "Shizzle vs Razer." It's an old video this editor posted of his cat taking swipes at an electric razer. It's also an obscure video, but one that we know exists, and only Google dug it up. Clicking on Google's Videos tab also brought up a bunch of other videos with either "Shizzle" or "Shaver" in the title—DuckDuckGo and Bing found none whatsoever.
Image searches were a little more evenly matched between the three. Whether we were searching for computer parts like the GTX 980 or new wallpaper by looking up the Celtics dancers, all three came back with current and relevant images. Interestingly, only Google sprinkled in a heavy dose of performance graphs when looking up the GTX 980.
Google and Bing separate themselves from DuckDuckGo because they offer some advanced options for looking up media. Both allow you to filter image results by license, time it was posted, size, and other criteria. However, Google eeks out a victory for its "search by image" tool. See that camera icon placed at the right of the search field? You can click it to look up sites that are using an image—just plug in the image's URL or upload the actual image. This can be handy in tracking down the image's owner to request permission to use it, or to look up your own photos to see if anyone's infringing on your copyright.
Winner: Google
Layout and Features
Once again, DuckDuckGo is the lame duck of the bunch. The search engine's primary draw is privacy, and while there are some settings you can tweak, its overall layout and feature set isn't as robust as either Google or Bing, making this category a two-combatant fight.
Google's layout is straightforward; when searching for something, you can fine-tune your results into web, shopping, images, news, videos, maps, books, flights, and apps. Bing offers a similar set of options, though not quite as many. Microsoft's search engine also falls short in the shopping category—Bing no longer has a dedicated shopping tab. Instead, product results are integrated into search, though you typically have to look up a specific model to have any luck. Google, on the other hand, makes it easy to look up an item and then sort by price.
Google also wins when it comes to looking up flight information. Both Google and Bing make it easy to search for flights, but when you click on the calendar to look at dates, only Google shows you the different prices for each day of the month. This eliminates the guessing the game of picking out a date and hoping that it returns a cheaper result than the last one you looked at.
One feature in Bing's favor—and it's a potentially big one—is Bing Rewards. It's mostly gift cards that you can earn simply by using Bing as your go-to search engine, such as $5 at Amazon or Applebees. Yes, Bing is essentially bribing you, but we're okay with that.
If earning gift cards is important to you, Bing is the only way to go. Otherwise, Google is the victor here.
Winner: Google
Privacy and Security
A big reason (and maybe the only reason) you might be familiar with DuckDuckGo is because it prioritizes privacy over all else. Google is big on integrating your online identity with its services, including search, and knows what you've searched for, when you searched for something, and other personal details. You'd do well to familiarize yourself with Google's privacy policy.
Bing is a little better when it comes to privacy, but you're still not anonymous—Bing holds onto IP addresses for six months and retains cookies and other cross-session identifiers for 18 months, according to the company's privacy statement. Microsoft also has sections explaining how it uses your personal information and reasons why it shares that info.
DuckDuckGo is different. It doesn't collect or share personal information, it doesn't know who you are, and there is no way for the search engine to tie your searches together, according to its privacy page. DuckDuckGo doesn't store your IP and no cookies are used by default. All this privacy comes at the expense of certain features—Google's integration with your social profile is quite good—but in terms of staying anonymous, DuckDuckGo is clearly ahead of the other two.
Winner: DuckDuckGo
Easter Eggs
There's no denying that Google has a sense of humor and likes to have fun. The company demonstrates this time and time again, whether through its creative doodles (including interactive ones) or by dropping Easter eggs from time to time. Have you ever tried searching for "do a barrel roll" on Google? How about "askew"? Whether it's searching through Google's hacker interface or seeing what search results looked like in 1998, there are plenty of tricks and fun stuff to discover in Google.
Winner: Google
And the Winner Is...
If you're keeping score at home, then you already know that Google takes this contest by winning three of the five categories and notching a tie in another. By that token, Google has the best search engine of the bunch, and while it's the one we use most often, we're willing to concede there are valid arguments in favor of the other two.
For privacy advocates, DuckDuckGo is a solid search engine that lets you surf the web without leaving behind a bunch of bread crumbs for Uncle Sam or anyone else to follow. Your ISP still knows what you're up to, but at least the sites you visit are being kept at arm's length.
If you like earning free stuff, Bing is the best option for its rewards program. It's also a very good all-around search engine with accurate and fast results, it's just not as good as Google in the grand scheme of things.
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