Hidden Nook

The idea came to me one evening, as an April Fool's joke story I later submitted on Slashdot. However, the concept of search engine comparison have been running around the back of my head for some time.

Different search engines process the search queries and result ranking differently. By performing the query on two different engines at the same time, with direct comparison of the results. This enables users to assess the consensus of ranking, and discrepancies between the two.

For queries of well-known company names, one engine might display a given hit on the third place, while the other ranks it 96th. When only a minority of users actually click beyond the first ten hits, this difference is critical.

The benefits for both search engines are a somewhat larger user base, and also an increased attention to search result quality. From what I've learned, Google is the preferred engine for geeks, while Yahoo seems more popular amongst non-geeks.

It actually depends. The favorite is to use yagoohoogle (or rather Twingine now) and see which yields the better results.

From my experience, Google's results are often diluted by hits with little uniqueness. Yahoo seems to have a preference for the more "official" sources for information; Google ranks primarily by number of incoming links.

Furthermore, Google's PageRank algorithm is constantly attacked by "link farms" and facade sites created for the sole purpose of influencing Google's ranking.

Their primary concern is the dilution of their trade mark. But from what I've read about U.S. trademark law, I don't believe that yagoohoogle is infringing. I have offered both Yahoo and Google to refrain from the logo and the YaGoohoo!gle term, but they also claim the domain name in itself is infringing.

I am not an U.S. citizen, and have little experience in legal procedures in the States.

I have already set up a new site, twingine.com, with the same functionality and code base. I plan on redirecting all traffic there. Any logo designers with good ideas are welcome to contact me.

Other sites, like searchthe4.com (now defunct) and yamsgoohooglen.tk already have done this. In my opinion, more than two [search] engines is not worth the screen real estate it requires.

One sign of the positive feedback is the number of clones that have appeared. To date, I've learned of gahooyoogle.com, gooyaglehoo.com, searchthe4.com, yamsgoohooglen.tk, and splitsearch.com.

In addition, I have received a number of donations for the site. In the comments field, the donors write things like:

"This is a great idea!! Keep up the good work!"
"Thanks for the good hearted laugh. You did a great job."
"Excellent idea! Good luck! Richard from London, UK"
"Love the idea and the implementation. Congrats from the great-grandson of a Norwegian."
"Thanks for a fabulous service!"
"You are an inspiration to webmasters worldwide."