Day Without Google: Were you 'master of your domain'?
Yesterday was the Day Without Google, a one-day blog event organized by AltSearchEngines. A lot of people tried to last a day without using Google's ubiquitous search engine, and in this post we take a look at the results. TheRegister has already covered the event, in an article provocatively entitled Blog calls for Google boycott. WebProNews also had a good report. Note that our intent wasn't to "boycott" Google - Google is number 1 for a reason, which is that it's the best search engine around. The reason behind the 'Day Without Google' was purely to encourage people to experiment with and test out some of the hundreds of Google competitors; maybe even catch a glimpse of the future dominant search engine. Anyway TheRegister article included this great quote from AltSearchEngines editor Charles Knight:
"Yesterday, Michael VandeMar tried to go eighteen hours without visiting the big five search engines. Taking up a challenge from search engine guru Charles Knight, he'd resolved to avoid Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Ask.com, and AOL from 6am to midnight. By 9:53, he'd given up. "Bah!" he wrote to Knight's Alt Search Engines blog. "I blew it."
"I immediately thought of the Seinfeld master-of-your-domain thing," Knight told The Register."
I have a confession to make. I too blew it. I used Hakia for the beginning of the day, but then sometime before lunch I subconsciously used Google again. I think I was so focused on getting my work done, that out of habit I typed something into the Google toolbar and pressed enter. Quick as a flash, the Google results page came up. I felt soooo guilty! It goes to show just how difficult it is to change ingrained habits on the Web.
Read/WriteWeb author Josh Catone got the job done though. He used Lexxe, Hakia and other 'natural language processing' search engines throughout the day. He reported mixed results, concluding that "my day without Google demonstrated to me just how far alternative search engines (at least those of the natural language set -- which is one of the most hyped variety as potential "Google-killers") have to go to catch up with Google and the other big 5 search engines.".
Other Read/WriteWeb and AltSearchEngines readers reported their findings via comments. Michael Clarke admitted "I lasted about ten minutes" (I can take some comfort in lasting longer than that!). Dan Grossman wasn't game enough to "switch to alternative search engines I've never heard of." He did however use Ask.com and was generally satisfied. Catherine lasted the whole day using Quintura, reporting that it "gave me useful results up front". Over on AltSearchEngines, Nick T used Clusty and said: "Very impressed. It came up with good results right off and the cluster controls were just what I need to be able to tweak the results to get where I ultimately wanted (as well as explore "nearby" results)."
So, were you a "master of your domain"? Tell us your results in the comments...
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We've got a lot of feedback! Let's make it a regular day!
Posted by: Yakov | June 13, 2007 9:58 PM
I lasted quite a bit without resorting to Google and then I blew it by Pavlovian response. I had to look up something and automatically type google and started searching...so much for trying out other search engines.
kamla
Posted by: kamla bhatt | June 13, 2007 10:45 PM
Yeah, I lasted about two hours. I started off using snap which I found terrible despite the novel interface. I then moved on to Quintura which was much better.
Unfortunately the subconcious got me too. I didn't even realise what I was doing until it was too late.
Posted by: The Muso | June 14, 2007 12:47 AM
I failed too! I did the exact same 'unthinkingly putting a search term into the Google toolbar and hitting return' thing as well. I lasted until 10am. Truly pathetic! I also got myself completely and utterly tangled up in an alternative search engine and rather than being motivated to try out another, shelved all internet searches until the next day when Google would be 'back'.
Hands up. I admit it. I love Google. I've sold my online soul to them and I like the price I got for it.
Posted by: Sarah | June 14, 2007 12:49 AM
In an experiment such as this, the "proof will always be in the eating". I am afraid the results/responses, by and large, have only served to reinforce the superiority of Google In fact, it may have even done more harm than good to the alternatives by showing up their deficiencies.
Posted by: Adrian keys | June 14, 2007 8:24 AM
This is Charles Knight, editor of AltSearchEngines and instigator of the "Day without Google."
Let me respond to Adrian's comment.
The results of the Day could be depressing if we left it there! But why should we leave it there? Take up our marbles and go home? No way. What can we learn from the experiment?
I'm not of a mind to just blurt out the answer here, but if you were one of the alt search engines that got "beat" by a major search engine, if you didn't give up....what might you do?
(and remember, some people commented that they were pleased with their experience with an alt search engine - and so very many were not even tried!)
Posted by: Charles Knight | June 14, 2007 7:06 PM
I had the day off and went for a long walk :-)
but i do like Quintura.
Posted by: Raf | June 14, 2007 9:50 PM
I never heard about this. I have tried other search engines, even the bigger ones, like AltaVista and AllTheWeb, and found them very disappointing, despite their supposed popularity.
I have tried Quintura, but my favorite search engine right now is the Google Directory, a human maintained and indexed categorized search. It is pretty cool to find exactly what you are looking for just by going to a related category and entering a few search terms.
Posted by: Cubex DE | June 16, 2007 9:34 PM