Google enjoys the title of being the strongest and most popular search engine on the internet. However most know that there are competitors looking to gain that position too. And there are times, although not often, that Google is not available and the other search engine competitors might have to be used. Here are some of Google’s most significant competitors:

Yahoo: Yahoo is also a portal so when you go to its main page at www.yahoo.com, you will also see other information like news, sports, free e-mail, and entertainment. Yahoo has a search engine database plus its own directory. Yahoo has been in the news recently because of a Microsoft bid to merge with the company.

Live Search: Live search is Microsoft’s implementation of its own search engine. It was formerly known as MSN search. One interesting feature of Live Search not found on Google is the video search. You can search on videos by keywords and the result will be a several frames per page of the different videos found. However what is unique is that all you have to do is roll the mouse over the frame of the video and it automatically plays. This has a distinct advantage over other video sharing sites where an embedded player must load and buffer the video in order to play it.

Live Search uses a minimum of advertisements however it does have sponsored sites (paid ads) and they are listed down the right-hand side of the screen. Also along the right-hand side of the screen is the list of related searches.

Ask: This search engine was formerly known as Ask Jeeves. It is a Google competitor that includes paid ad results from Google’s AdWords database. Unlike its competitor Google, when you enter a search engine query on Ask the results are returned in three columns. The very left is the entry area for your search query. You will notice that you have options to narrow your search or expand your search—something the competitor Google does not have. Plus, while you are typing into the search engine query field, you are automatically fed a list of other related search ideas which can be very useful. Google has a search ideas feature but it usually is found on the Google toolbar and not online. You will also notice that advertisements are minimal however sponsored results are mixed in with the search results.

Ask purposely moves extraneous information that is helpful but not essential to the third rightmost column. The rightmost column contains thumbnails of related images, the related Wikipedia definition pertaining to your search keyword, and the related definition from the American Heritage® Dictionary. Basically the third column enhances the search engine results related to the search keywords entered.

The Ask search engine has a well-developed user portal that gives registered users the ability to save bookmarks and organize them into folders with the click of a button. With the click of another button you can save the bookmark to a web page and add a note to it. Another user function allows you to save all the images of a web page with one click of another button. What is really handy is as you scroll down search results, an icon appears allowing you to save the location of the page. And as you scroll, if any result has a binoculars icon, you can just hover the mouse over it and see a small preview of the page—something else the competitor Google does not have.

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