# Is Googol The Last Word in Search Engines? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 14, 2001, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-googol-the-last-word-in-search-engines/68849 "2001-06-14T22:14:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Crusoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2001, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-googol-the-last-word-in-search-engines/68849/21 "2001-06-15T08:24:54Z")
Google is particularly popular because it claims to have the edge in the number of pages indexed. I was a diehard user of **Raging** ( [http://www.raging.com/](http://www.raging.com/) ), which is AltaVista’s cut-down cousin, and **FASTSearch** , ( [http://www.alltheweb.com/](http://www.alltheweb.com/) ), but some test searches on Google got me more results. A good source for comparative information is [Search Engine Watch](http://www.searchenginewatch.com/). According to them: > [@](#): > > Google is a special case. It has indexed 705 million pages, but because of the way Google uses link data, it can actually return listings for sites it has never visited. This gives it coverage of over 1.3 billion pages… [Search Engine Showdown](http://www.searchengineshowdown.com/) claims that Google is ahead, with an estimated 625m pages indexed (700m claimed) against 539m indexed (607m claimed) from the nearest competitor, FASTSearch. ---
**Author:** ![London\_Calling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@London\_Calling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/London_Calling)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2001, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-googol-the-last-word-in-search-engines/68849/22 "2001-06-15T11:55:55Z")
With all due respect to the above posters who’ve shared good information, I tend to take a different approach. If you just want a fast and dirty search then, sure, Google is good. However, it’s a search engine and, as such, highly susceptible to result manipulation (by people wanting to promote their web pages) while also, still, contains too many dead, old and poor quality pages. It’s important to remember that with search engines there remains little effective quality control as people submit their pages and they go straight into the database. Also, your keyword searches tend to generate a lot of false leads. The distinction I draw is with Directories such as Yahoo and, more particularly, the [Open Directory Project](http://dmoz.org/)(ODP). Directories are quality led in as much as **all** the content is checked by human editors before being put in the database. Some people don’t quite understand how to drill down through the Directory categories, others prefer to use the fast and dirty search box: Sometimes speed and quality aren’t comfortable bedfellows. Currently the ODP contains: 2,676,374 sites - 37,660 editors - 378,646 categories (about double that of Yahoo). That’s whole sites, not pages - as is the above quoted Google number. Also, as said, there’s little or no rubbish in the database. I like to use it when I can because it’s a volunteer led organisation – the editors are unpaid and the philosophy non-corporate (in the spirit of the original ‘open source’ culture of the web). I guess you choose which engine or which Directory to use according to the subject matter of the search. ---
**Author:** ![Yossarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/9de0a6/32.png) [@Yossarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yossarian)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2001, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-googol-the-last-word-in-search-engines/68849/23 "2001-06-15T14:14:48Z")
[Elsevier Scientific](http://www.elsevier.nl) has a science-only search engine that finds both web sites and peer-reviewed articles available via the internet: [http://www.scirus.com](http://www.scirus.com) Some articles aren’t accessible if you’re not logging in through an academic or government network that subscribes, though, but you can still get the cites and actually walk (gasp!) to the library. ---
**Author:** ![Papermache\_Prince](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f05b48/32.png) [@Papermache\_Prince](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Papermache_Prince)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2001, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-googol-the-last-word-in-search-engines/68849/24 "2001-06-15T15:21:01Z")
An overview of search engines can be found at: [http://www.zdnet.com/searchiq/](http://www.zdnet.com/searchiq/) I like the features at Vivisom: sorting into categories and the option to open a result in a new window or preview in the list itself. [http://vivisimo.com/](http://vivisimo.com/) To search for news stories: [http://w.moreover.com/](http://w.moreover.com/) ---
**Author:** ![Why\_A\_Duck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/13edae/32.png) [@Why\_A\_Duck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Why_A_Duck)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2001, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-googol-the-last-word-in-search-engines/68849/25 "2001-06-15T15:54:54Z")
Yet another reason to love Google: [Bork-Bork-Bork!](http://www.google.com/intl/xx-bork/) ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2001, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-googol-the-last-word-in-search-engines/68849/26 "2001-06-15T16:54:25Z")
As a matter of fact, Googol is 100000000000000000000- 00000000000000000000- 00000000000000000000- 00000000000000000000- 00000000000000000000 times better than the next search engine. Sorry, I couldn’t resist. If you’d like a detailed explanation as to _why_ Google and “hypersearching” is the schnitzit, you might be interested in [this Scientific American article](http://www.sciam.com/1999/0699issue/0699raghavan.html). ---
**Author:** ![romansperson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/romansperson/32/17100_2.png) [@romansperson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/romansperson)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2001, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-googol-the-last-word-in-search-engines/68849/27 "2001-06-15T20:36:19Z")
I like Dogpile myself: [http://www.dogpile.com](http://www.dogpile.com) It’s a meta-search engine (it searches other search engines), and its reach is wide rather than deep, though if you are getting good results from one of the engines, you can ask to see more results. If I’m looking for some obscure thing it can usually get me going in the right direction. Plus I just really like the name 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2001, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-googol-the-last-word-in-search-engines/68849/28 "2001-06-15T21:59:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Fear Itself \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by TheLoadedDog \* > > **I can’t stand Yahoo.** > > Surprise!! Yahoo’s search engine is powered by Google; has been for over a year. [Look in the top left corner.](http://google.yahoo.com/bin/query?p=%22straight+dope%22&hc=1&hs=6) \*\* Yahoo’s search is powered by the Google engine, but the “real” Google doesn’t have 80,000 links cluttering up the front page to annoy the hell out of me. Remember the good ol’ days, when Yahoo was just a logo and an input box, like Google is now? ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2001, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-googol-the-last-word-in-search-engines/68849/29 "2001-06-15T22:02:18Z")
I can only find myself on Google and Altavista. ---
**Author:** ![whitetho](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whitetho/32/1059_2.png) [@whitetho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whitetho)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2001, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-googol-the-last-word-in-search-engines/68849/30 "2001-06-15T23:30:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by London\_Calling \* > **If you just want a fast and dirty search then, sure, Google is good. However, it’s a search engine and, as such, highly susceptible to result manipulation (by people wanting to promote their web pages) while also, still, contains too many dead, old and poor quality pages.** I’m going to respectfully disagree here. Because it is largely based on the links it finds to pages, and also superior analysis of page organization, Google is largely immune to manipulation. The top listed pages tend to be very high quality – just do a search on any topic you know a lot about, and it’s almost certain that the top choices will be the among the best on the web. (When you do a search on radio history my page is listed first, so I admit I’m a little biased). And Google handles the dead links/down server problem by including a cached copy of the page as it was when it spidered the site. > [@](#): > > **It’s important to remember that with search engines there remains little effective quality control as people submit their pages and they go straight into the database. Also, your keyword searches tend to generate a lot of false leads.** Again Google is a lot more sophisticated than that, because it anaylzes the links and other pages which point to the site. Also, Google is a lot better than most search engines – this is especially true of meta searchers – about not quietly mixing paid sites with the “real” ones. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2001, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-googol-the-last-word-in-search-engines/68849/31 "2001-06-16T00:27:20Z")
Google doesn’t seem to have updated its links since it started. I’m getting more dead ones and an awful lot of stale ones. ---
**Author:** ![phartizan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba8739/32.png) [@phartizan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phartizan)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2001, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-googol-the-last-word-in-search-engines/68849/32 "2001-06-16T13:50:14Z")
If not “whose”, then what? Whats? Who’s wrong now (I’m dying to know)? > [@](#): > > ## quote: > > Originally posted by KneadToKnow > > ## quote: > > ## Originally posted by tsunamisurfer I rely on Googol > > ## Which leaves me dying to know how you can possibly depend very heavily upon a web site who’s name (and thus, presumably, URL) you can’t spell … > > a website isn’t a “who,” knead. > > P.S. Thinking “whose” instead? Still wrong. > > (meow) ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2001, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-googol-the-last-word-in-search-engines/68849/33 "2001-06-16T14:14:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by phartizan \* > If not “whose”, then what? Whats? Who’s wrong now (I’m dying to know)? To say it grammatically, I probably should have said: > [@](#): > > Which leaves me dying to know, how can you possibly depend very heavily upon a web site the name (and thus, presumably, URL) of which you can’t spell Of course, to keep **tsunamisurfer** happy, I probably should have just kept my mouth shut. After all, I’m sure nobody else noticed the spelling error besides me. :rolleyes: One of these days I’ll learn that a 😃 is no guarantee that the ribbee will understand they are being ribbed. ---
**Author:** ![mongrel\_8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@mongrel\_8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mongrel_8)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2001, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-googol-the-last-word-in-search-engines/68849/34 "2001-06-16T14:43:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by dropzone \* > \*\*Google doesn’t seem to have updated its links since it started. I’m getting more dead ones and an awful lot of stale ones. \*\* I’m not sure if this is what you are talking about but when I use Google and sometimes click directly on a link it has an error opening it. However, if I click cached the same link will open up fine. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2001, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-googol-the-last-word-in-search-engines/68849/35 "2001-06-16T15:26:41Z")
I \*\* don’t \*\* like google very much. I use engines in this order: 1. start on Yahoo! _if I don’t find what I want_ 2. search on Altavista _if I don’t find what I want_ 3. Search on Dogpile and/or google. I usually don’t get as far as step 3. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2001, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-googol-the-last-word-in-search-engines/68849/36 "2001-06-16T15:47:42Z")
It is perfectly correct to use _whose_ to refer to a thing. I used to think it wasn’t, too, but I was wrong. Damn, now you’ll be asking for a cite… ---
**Author:** ![phartizan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba8739/32.png) [@phartizan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phartizan)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2001, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-googol-the-last-word-in-search-engines/68849/37 "2001-06-16T16:02:33Z")
> [@](#): > > quote: > _Originally posted by KneadToKnow_ > To say it grammatically, I probably should have said: > > ## quote: > > ## Which leaves me dying to know, how can you possibly depend very heavily upon a web site the name (and thus, presumably, URL) of which you can’t spell > > Of course, to keep tsunamisurfer happy, I probably should have just kept my mouth shut. After all, I’m sure nobody else noticed the spelling error besides me. Actually, I wondered about the spelling error, too, as did those overcoat & nose people. But “whose” can mean “of which” in the sense of “a possessive adjective corresponding in meaning to the relative pronoun ‘which’” (according to Webster’s 3rd New International Dictionary). Looking up “whose” and “of which” with google got old pretty quickly. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2001, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-googol-the-last-word-in-search-engines/68849/38 "2001-06-16T19:45:39Z")
Is Google The Last Word in Search Engines? No, eventually there will be googleplex. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![tsunamisurfer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a698b9/32.png) [@tsunamisurfer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tsunamisurfer)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2001, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-googol-the-last-word-in-search-engines/68849/39 "2001-06-16T22:19:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Alan Smithee \* > \*\*It is perfectly correct to use _whose_ to refer to a thing. I used to think it wasn’t, too, but I was wrong. > > Damn, now you’ll be asking for a cite… \*\* Actually, at one time, it wasn’t. But then, that’s not the point, old boy. No, the real point is that when one makes a major gaffe in the opening post, rather than subsequently admitting to it and thus losing face, it’s much easier to counterattack, even if the substance of the counterattack is weak and irrelevant and fools absolutely nobody. Afterward, you can only hope that the thread disappears into the ether which, this very post, of course, makes quite impossible. P.S. Somebody has GOT to do something about that idiotic smiling face, Knead. Tweak it somehow. Add a goatee or dreads. Maybe a beret. Those idiotic buck teeth really freak me out. ---
**Author:** ![capacitor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e47774/32.png) [@capacitor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capacitor)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2001, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-googol-the-last-word-in-search-engines/68849/40 "2001-06-16T22:30:28Z")
I like Google because “dumb motherfucker” **still** points to a hotlink to George Bush’s web site. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-googol-the-last-word-in-search-engines/68849.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-googol-the-last-word-in-search-engines/68849.md?page=3)