# Google? What's so good about it? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 12, 2000, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-whats-so-good-about-it/45179 "2000-12-12T16:20:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![cornflakes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@cornflakes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cornflakes)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2000, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-whats-so-good-about-it/45179/21 "2000-12-13T01:19:54Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Scarlett67 \* > **Another note: On holidays, Google decorates its logo with the appropriate theme…** This touches on the reason I like Google: It has **a** graphic. If I want to do a search, I want to search, not wait while the graphics load (and yes, I could turn graphics off or use Opera, but…) OTOH, I wished it defaulted to OR logic, and it seems to have trouble recognizing words inside quotes as being phrases. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2000, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-whats-so-good-about-it/45179/22 "2000-12-13T02:10:25Z")
I use [google.com](http://google.com) out of habit: I’ve typed it so often into my address bar it’s muscle memory now. I can rip it off in the time it takes for my nerves to fire without engaging the rest of my brain at all. I was a user of Yahoo, because they advertise and are the most frequently referenced. But, as has been said above, Google is the One True Search Engine. The ranking pages by links is genius. Caching is inspired. The speed is great. The fact that Yahoo uses its engine is proof: Google is the best. Go to it first and eliminate the middlemen who use its engine but not its simple and clean interface. (I have also had good results with [dogpile.com](http://dogpile.com), a metasearch engine, but Google is always my first stop. It is frequently my last.) ---
**Author:** ![omni-not](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8dc957/32.png) [@omni-not](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/omni-not)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2000, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-whats-so-good-about-it/45179/23 "2000-12-13T02:16:45Z")
To use technical lingo: Google is google-icious! Google rules!! Nuff said. ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2000, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-whats-so-good-about-it/45179/24 "2000-12-13T02:56:45Z")
Google is my favorite. First off, the site isn’t covered in crap. It isn’t trying to be a news/entertainment/advertizing/portal/etc it’s just trying to be a search engine. Second, it’s FAST. Third, it gets more and better results. A search for “opalcat” on these four engines: **Google** : 2,870 **Yahoo** : 3 (within the index) **Excite** : 590 **AltaVista** : 985 - (interestingly, the first match is\* [http://www.straightdope.com/faq/index.html](http://www.straightdope.com/faq/index.html) \*) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2000, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-whats-so-good-about-it/45179/25 "2000-12-13T04:15:32Z")
Which search engine is best depends on what you’re trying to do. Google gets high marks for relevance (thanks to that ranking-by-links), so it’s a good choice if you’re looking for something common, but only want the good info. Altavista, however, has a much larger database, so if you’re looking for something obscure (as in, mentioned on a half-dozen pages on the entire Web), it’s a better choice. Also, last I knew, Google was almost unique among major search engines in not supporting advanced searches: Phrase matching, required/omitted keywords, Boolean expressions, etc. Search within results might be nice, but if you know what you’re doing, you can get the exact same effect with Altavista. As to the ads on AltaVista, ironically, one time I couldn’t find any listing for the web page I was looking for in the seach database, but it was the advertisement on the top of the page. Capitalism at work, no? ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2000, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-whats-so-good-about-it/45179/26 "2000-12-13T04:41:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Chronos \* > **Also, last I knew, Google was almost unique among major search engines in not supporting advanced searches: Phrase matching, required/omitted keywords, Boolean expressions, etc.** It still doesn’t do Boolean (far as I can tell) but you CAN require or exclude words, in their ‘Advanced Search’, now. ---
**Author:** ![Extant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Extant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Extant)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2000, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-whats-so-good-about-it/45179/27 "2000-12-13T04:55:14Z")
I can never get the answers I need from Google. I usually start here \*\* [http://www.thesurfer.com/](http://www.thesurfer.com/) \*\* Sometimes this one works better \*\* [http://www.directhit.com/](http://www.directhit.com/) \*\* ---
**Author:** ![DonJuanDeMarco3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a87d85/32.png) [@DonJuanDeMarco3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DonJuanDeMarco3)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2000, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-whats-so-good-about-it/45179/28 "2000-12-13T08:28:30Z")
OK, no opinions just numbers. this is when “opalcat” was searched [ul] [li]directhit=23[/li][li]octopus=7,331[/li][li]google=2,870[/li][li]yahoo=3[/li][li]metacrawler=30[/li][li]Northernlight=1,629[/li][li]ragingsearch=20[/li][/ul] This is when “New York” was searched [ul] [li]directhit=210[/li][li]octopus=39,470,073[/li][li]google=2,260,000[/li][li]yahoo=7,314[/li][li]metacrawler=55[/li][li]Northernlight=13,441,203[/li][li]ragingsearch=23,750,262[/li][/ul] It depends on what you search and what you want. Some of the links of search engines that got high figures had dead links and sites that had nothing to do with the searched words. It all depends… ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2000, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-whats-so-good-about-it/45179/29 "2000-12-13T16:25:39Z")
Lots of times I input users questions from this board into that search engine & get the answer, then I post it here just for laughs. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-whats-so-good-about-it/45179.md?page=1)