Compare results of different Internet search engines

Different search engines on the World Wide Web use different internal search techniques and have different methods for becoming informed about the existence of particular web pages. (See "Listing your web site with search engines" at http://www.mmgco.com/wsrev195.html) This exercise asks you to use three different search engines to find information related to the same topic. You can find a series of search engines listed in this Web site's section on "Other Online Resources."

1. Think of a major city you have never visited that you would like to visit for personal or business reasons. Assume you want to obtain tourist information about that city. Enter the same query into three different search engines and observe the results.
   1. How many hits do you get on each of the search engines?
   2. Look at the first 10 hits for each search engine and decide which search engine seemed to give you the most useful results and why.

2. Based on what you find, try to refine your search by adding additional key words or using the search engine's methods for refining a search (sometimes called advanced searching). Try to enter exactly the same refined search specification into each of the three search engines.
   1. How many hits do you get on each of the search engines?
   2. Look at the first 10 hits for each search engine and decide which search engine seemed to give you the most useful results and why.

3. What conclusions seem justified by the similarities and differences in the results? (For example, is the quality of the results similar or different? Are the search engines equally easy to use? Is it easy or difficult to find valuable information?)

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