I first heard of Google from Joel on Software. I may have heard of it before, but I wasn't shopping for a new search engine, and before Joel, I hadn't seen a strong recomendation for it.

After using it, I've switched. I occasionally still use others - and today noticed something that I hadn't before. When I did a yahoo search, I got a logo "Yahoo! Powered by Google". I know Yahoo changed from a search engine to a portal a long time ago, but I'm still impressed that 1) they'd give up their search engine and 2) they recognized how good Google is.

If Joel's endorsement isn't enough to make you try Google, Yahoo's should be.

-- Anonymous, November 09, 2000

Answers

Google is the *only* way to surf the web. I've been using it since it was in beta. I think it's only gotten better since then. Google indexes over a billion pages, which is right up there on top of the search engine rankings, yet scores the results from your query meaningfully. It's a miracle. I'm normally against software patents, but I'd almost make an exception for Google's "Page Rank" algorithm.

Joel's not the only one recommending Google. I can't find the link (Jakob uses some dumb search engine instead of Google ;), but a while back Nielsen recommended a simple Google search over Yahoo's link hierarchicy for finding information.

If you're wondering, a "google" is a 1 with 100 zeros after it.

-- Anonymous, November 09, 2000

"Google" Nit Pick

If you're wondering, a "google" is a 1 with 100 zeros after it.

Sorry, but the correct spelling of ten to the hundredth power is "googol".

-- Anonymous, November 09, 2000

Yahoo still maintains their directory - they just use Google to fill in the gaps, and provide the punters with more search options. They'd be mugs to give up their main asset. The current Y! search interface gives up to 5 options for results, and Google is only one of the options, but only gets used by defult for searches that don't return Y! directory results.

-- Anonymous, November 09, 2000

Yahoo was never a search engine. It has always been a directory. At some point, however, they began adding to Yahoo! directory searches the results from a name search engine. Most recently this has been Altavista, but my memory is hazy on whether they were the first. In any event, at the expiration of their contract with Altavista, they chose Google.

-- Anonymous, November 13, 2000

Yahoo was using Inktomi (not altavista) as their search engine (as in software not site)... and then switched to Google. Altavista was a site that Yahoo forwared to (ages ago) ... when Yahoo was just a directory with no search engine. Yahoo offers both a directory service and a search service.

-- Anonymous, November 16, 2000

My dad has been learning about the web. I explained to him that a search engine is a very useful website.

It works by surfing the entire web and later on can help you find a page if you tell it what words that page should have. Or what topic that page should be talking about. I then explained to him that he should use google. Explaining google.com is not easy from a brand name point of view. A search engine is Yahoo! to the every day joe. Just like Ketchup is tomato sauce.

I simply told him that google.com is the search engine that will NOT give him porno links when he is looking for a ATV (recreational vehicle) retailer. It will save him some confusion. Hopefully it will bring him more quality search results as it did for me.

I use google.com almost exclusively now. And altavista's text- version of the advanced search as a backup.

-- Anonymous, November 20, 2000