Google, Yahoo, and CNN: ARGH

Much has been made of the switch of CNN from Google's search results to Yahoo's. I'll take CNN's word that they switched, but in at least one instance Google's search is still better than Yahoo's.

Last week I needed to confim a quote by economist Erica Groshen. The quote ostensibly came from a CNN story. I went to CNN and searched CNN for "erica groshen". No results. Fine, I think, I'll take off the quotes. I searched CNN for erica groshen. No results. (I have screenshots for these results, if you like.)

The person I'm checking for is usually pretty good about his sources, so while I'm willing to believe that the quote is wrong I can't imagine that Erica Groshen was never mentioned on CNN ever. So while I felt funny about not trusting CNN's site search, I went to Google and searched "erica groshen" site:cnn.com .

And bingo, I got two results. I looked at them and they were both from money.cnn.com. So I thought, "aha, I'm searching in the wrong place, I'll go search money.cnn.com for "erica groshen"."

And I did. And you know what? I only got one of the two results I got from Google.

The lessons I learned:

1) I'm going to be a lot more suspicious of third-party site search from now on. (No matter who they are: I'm not picking just on Yahoo.)

2) If third party search is being provided to a site, like CNN, with many properties, perhaps a third option could be added to the search box -- CNN, Web, and All CNN Properties.

Are you wondering what the end of the story is? I checked a few more places and couldn't get a clear sense of the quote, so I e-mailed Ms. Groshen myself, and she was very kind and responded.

This entry will not appear in the newsletter.

Posted to Search Engines-Yahoo | TrackBack