[WEB4LIB] Search Engine Ratings

[Christopher Handy]

> I'm trying to locate a 1999 article from Science magazine that rated the
> Search Engines.


Perhaps you're thinking of the NetWatch column in the July 16, 1999 issue
(p. 295). Reporting on a survey first published in Nature, it states (in
part):

----- begin quote -----

Search Engines Fall Short

To find that one snippet of information hidden in the thicket of data on
the Web, most users turn to search engines. But a survey of the 11 most
widely used search engines, reported in last week's issue of Nature,
suggests that these trailblazers are losing the scent. No single search
engine, the study found, covered more than 16% of the Web's contents (see
table).

<snip>

Legend for Chart:

A - Company
B - Percent

      A             B

Northern Light     16.0
Snap               15.5
AltaVista          15.5
HotBot             11.3
Microsoft           8.5
Infoseek            8.0
Google              7.8
Yahoo!              7.4
Excite              5.6
Lycos               2.5
EuroSeek            2.2

----- end -----


Obviously these aren't "ratings", but rather measures of extent of coverage.


Christopher Handy
Indianapolis Museum of Art Library
Email: chandy at ima-art.org