Google is celebrating its 7th birthday today. As part of the birthday, they’ve increased their index again, and Google now claims to be “3 times larger than any other search engine.”
Though, Google does go on to point out that “different companies measure index size differently” and that “published metrics for index size measurement vary greatly and are no longer easily comparable”. So basically what they are saying is, we’re three times bigger than anyone else, but we really cannot compare the numbers.
Last time I heard, Yahoo was in the lead with more than 20 billion items indexed. Far more than Google at the time. So, does Google’s statement today mean they have 60 billion items indexed?
I’ll search for d3bruts1d and see what comes out of Google and the others…
Google: 37,200
Yahoo: 35,600
Ask: 10,800
MSN and AOL Search (powered by Google) did not display the number of results, so I wasn’t able to provide those numbers. If Google can provide 1600 more results for something as obscure as “d3bruts1d”, then I’m pretty sure they’ll come up with good results for a more meaningful search. But what do I know? I’ll try again, this time searching for “Internet Explorer Security Flaw”.
Google: 2,050
Yahoo: 290
Ask: 201
Google again has more results. But the real question isn’t who has more results, but who has the most relevant result or the result you are looking for. That’d take far more digging than I currently feel like doing. 
And don’t get me wrong. With the two searches I used, Google had more results. That isn’t always the case. This is one of those times where quality over quantity is more important. Quantity plus quality, well that is even frakking better.
Tags: Google