I decided to ask both search engines a series of questions to compare their performance. I’m going to summarize my results here rather than provide screen shots. I know most of you will think these questions are easy; please consider that the ease or difficulty of answering a question may be a matter of perspective. After all, until recently, how many people outside of the field had even heard of SEO?
• “What is search engine optimization?” Both Google and Answers.com provided the right answer to this question in the first sentence of their results. In Google’s case, the sentence came from a snippet from the first hyperlinked web site.
• “Where is the Blarney Stone?” Again, both Google and Answers.com quickly return satisfactory results. It’s worth noting that Google’s snippet, this time, came from Wikipedia. For some reason, Google provided only the metric measure of the distance from Cork, while Answers.com gave the distance in miles.
• “When is the next Fringe Festival in Scotland?” This question required the search engines to recognize several things at once: dates, the name of a festival, and location. Again, both performed similarly -- with a list of links that might or might not be relevant. Google’s links seemed a little more recent. Answers.com provided related links that at least seemed intriguing; as I had observed earlier, it’s a good engine for browsing.
• “Who first said ‘Time flies like an arrow fruit flies like a banana?’” This question required the search engines to recognize a quotation. Google gets points for bolding the quotation in all of the results it returns, but Answers.com wins conclusively by identifying Groucho Marx as the originator of the quote before one even clicks through to any results (though to find the actual quote itself, I had to scroll down a ways).
• “How are Venetian masks made?” Google’s first result for this query was from Wisegeek.com, and it answered the question “What are Venetian masks?” Though that’s a different question than the one I asked, when I clicked through to the site I found that the fourth paragraph gave a quick description of the process. Answers.com didn’t do as well; I got results from Wiki Answers, which told me what Venetian masks are made of (plaster of Paris or china), but that doesn't really tell me HOW they are made. If I was trying to make a Venetian mask myself, clicking through the results returned by Google gave me more useful information than clicking through Answers.com’s results.
I would be very interested to see what kinds of results other users get, but I must admit I was a little disappointed in Answers.com. I won’t rule it out for use when I’m in a mood to browse topics related to my specific query, but except in one case, it did not outperform Google when it came to answering my questions. If Answers.com’s goal is to beat Google, I see a long road ahead. I believe it makes more sense for the company to serve as an information portal, but even with that more modest goal, Answers.com will need to do some work; drawing answers from a wider range of trusted sources would not be out of line. I wish them luck.

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