Google commands slightly more than 60% of the search engine market in the United States, but have you ever really thought about why you use it as opposed to Yahoo, or Microsoft, or AOL, or a multitude of other choices? Do you find the search results ‘better’? Have you experienced this for yourself or do you simply use it because that’s what others say?

I think I’ve accepted Google as my default search engine a bit too readily. I haven’t performed any testing of search results between the major search engines. Ever since picking up Google about 5 years ago, I haven’t even bothered trying anything else. When I started using Google, it certainly provided better search results than competitors, but since then, they’ve all made significant improvements to their algorithms. Now, 5 years later, I still harbor that same mentality: Google produces more pertinent search results, when it may not at all.

Today, due to a weird technological occurrence, I was unable to access any of the Google sites, and was forced to search the internet using Live Search and Yahoo. To Google’s credit, using a non-Google search engine actually made me feel  uncomfortable. That’s as deep a psychological attachment as I’ve ever seen. However, more importantly, I realized that I’ve been browsing the internet with blinders on. There’s no reason, aside from comfort, that I’ve been using Google exclusively. From this point on, I will make a conscious attempt to perform the same searches in Google, Live, and Yahoo. Hopefully by doing this for a week or two, I’ll get a better feel for the search result quality of each engine.

Don’t get me wrong, I have no problems with using Google, and if through my test Google’s search results prove superior, I will gladly use it. I just don’t want go on searching the internet in ignorance. Anyone care to join me and share their findings?