One of the things I felt hurt me when I was writing or analyzing search engines was that I was soooooo incredibly used to Google search. I started using Google back in 2000 or so when my brother introduced me to them and haven’t really changed since. I’m sure everyone else in the tech industry has a similar story.
So, to broaden my horizons and see if the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, I’m going a week without Google search (as opposed to just a day). Every time I get the impulse to run a query, I’ll go to Yahoo, Ask, or Live. I hope running real queries as opposed to the canned ones you use while testing a new engine will give me a better understanding of the search landscape.
Here’s a list of some of the engines:
Yahoo.com
Ask.com
Live.com
Quintura.com
Powerset.com (private beta)
Hakia.com
SurfCanyon.com
