Those other search engines

Did you know that there are other search engines out there besides Google? It’s true! Sure Google gets all the press, what with joining the S&P 500 and starting their GeoAds and buying small, cool companies and their millions and billions of betas, but hey, don’t some of these other engines deserve love too?

Sure, they do. And I’m just the girl to give it to them.

First up, Yahoo!

When they’re not busy playing host to ‘celebrities’, the guys at Yahoo are working on delivering the most useful searches to 11-year-olds everywhere. Can’t find out what you need to know about architecture principles at Google? Yahoo has your information on page one.

Next in line, MSN

Everyone’s favorite small, scrappy start-up has announced that they’re looking at increasing distribution of their new MSN AdCenter ads on MSN Search. They say they’ll hit 70% volume in “several days”. This means that those using Yahoo’s paid search are going to see their ads getting less traffic as YSM ads are filtered out in place of MSN’s.

Last and Jeeves-less.

Ask has been running some TV commercials recently. I can’t decide if the monkeys are better or worse than William Hung. Two areas I do know Ask has everyone beat in are in their tools and interface. If you haven’t listened to me the last several times I’ve raved about the cool tools Ask offers to improve search then now is absolutely the time. Go. Now. I’ll wait. See, isn’t that cool?

Susan Esparza is former managing editor at Bruce Clay Inc., and has written extensively for clients and internal publications. Along with Bruce Clay, she is co-author of the first edition of Search Engine Optimization All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies.

See Susan's author page for links to connect on social media.