Project #15 Search Engine Reviews

1. WolframAlpha - To begin with, the best thing about this search engine is the calculating function. I wish I had known about this website when I was still taking tough math classes! Not only does it give you an answer, but it shows every step it took to come up with that answer. Amazing. As far as searching goes, however, I would probably only use this website if I needed quick facts about something. When I hear search engine, I think of something that is going to provide several websites for me to use and search deeper into the subject. WolframAlpha only gives facts and statistics about the word or phrase that you search. Other than that, I do like the layout; it is very easy to read and follow.

2. Yahoo! - The first thing I noticed about Yahoo is the large amount of advertisements all over the page. The ads take up a considerable amount of space on the web page, and are really distracting from the actual search results.

3. Ask - Ask is helpful because it has the Q&A section on the right-hand side of the page. This helps you quickly scroll and find what you were looking for and the answer without having to search around other websites.

4. Ixquick - This search engine claims to be "the world's most private." There is a link on the homepage with ten ways they protect your privacy. Some of these points include that they don't store IP addresses or cookies, and they're based in the Netherlands causing them to have different guidelines than American search engines.

5. DuckDuckGo - I liked that DuckDuckGo provided tabs under the search bar that included meanings and definitions. This would be useful if you were writing a paper (or a blog post!) and quickly needed to know the definition of a word. Other than that, I would say this is another average search engine that has a similar layout to Google and other websites.

6. Bing - Bing is actually not a bad search engine at all. I like that there are website, image, news, and other results for your search in an organized fashion all on one page. The advertisements are at the bottom and are not overwhelming. In addition to the different results on the same page, there are also tabs to go to a more extended page of the results you specifically wanted.

7. DogPile - This website could be helpful because it has a "white pages" function. If you needed a phone number and didn't have a phonebook or other source nearby, you could easily use DogPile's white pages. As far as search results goes, DogPile is also average and gets the job done.

8. HotBot - This was different because I had never heard of it, but I wasn't necessarily that impressed with it. There were no special features or functions that made it stand out besides the robot graphics. The same websites as usual were found, so I would say it is average as well.

In conclusion, most search engines find the same results, in the same amount of time, and have very similar layouts. Some have different sections that are especially helpful in certain situations, however. I use Google most often because it is tried-and-true, but this has opened my mind a little bit!