Enough of the bigger penis wars, Google and Yahoo! I could care less whether Yahoo has twice the index size of Google, or vice versa. Let me echo the sentiments of others and then make a few important points that I haven’t seen made as much or at all.

Firstly, I will concede that Jeremy Zawodny does make some good points this morning with Of Course Size Matters:

If size really doesn’t matter, then why didn’t anyone jump on Google for having that counter (”Searching 8,168,684,336 web pages”) on their home page for so long? They have one of the most sparse home pages around but seem to believe it’s important enough to waste a few bytes with that number. We all know that number is bullshit anyway, right?

This confused me a bit considering the index size should be easy to prove. It’s a simple count of all database records and I know Jeremy isn’t suggesting that Google can’t do the math. Then what is he suggesting?

That the index size number is an estimation, just like the number of search results are for certain terms? It’s well documented that the total number of search results is an estimated figure and sometimes those figures are bogus. The vast majority of people only care about the first few pages of results at best. Bots aside, who or what ever goes digging into page 101, much less page 1001 of any search result? Yahoo in their API in most cases doesn’t even provide past the first 1,000 results.

So in this sense I’m thinking both Yahoo and Google need to put down the viagra. Ever seen the movie Glengarry Glen Ross? Alec Baldwin plays the star salesmen who comes into the sales room and tells the underperforming salesmen: “Put that coffee down. Coffee is for closers!”

The same applies here with search relevancy, which Danny Sullivan and others have already hit the nail (and hopefully I’m making another dent in the nail hole):

I cannot believe we’re going through this again. This is Search Engine Size Wars VI, by my count. It’s absurd. It’s annoying. It’s a friggin’ waste of time. Instead of advancing to a commonly accepted relevancy figure, the search engines want to keep us mired in the mud of who’s biggest.

Sullivan goes onto ask for a unified, accepted way to measure relevancy in several ways. Here is where his opinion and mine part ways. I don’t want any unified accepted tool/service/utility/etc to tell me which search engine is more relevant. I’ll do that on my own, thank you, as will most users I’m sure. You see, there is a subjective nature to relevancy in that the smaller the number of searches, even more subjective and individualized the process becomes. That can’t be replicated through any known test until we truly solve the problem of A.I. I know many continue to work on fancy algorithms to deal with the immensely complex task of A.I. but it’s not there. It’s not even close to there, IMO.

Take for instance my common test of comparing the search for my name, “TDavid” across the three big search engines. I’ve explained here before why I use my own name; none of the search engines knows that term better than me. Not Google, MSN or Yahoo, so it makes the perfect benchmark of which search engine is returning the most relevant results for me.

Beyond using your own name/business that next most relevant search would be for a few things you are actually looking for. If it’s a dictionary search I don’t use the big three, even though I believe all three have dictionary reference tools. Instead I hit a dictionary engine.

Searching for a place? They both have specialized searches for that, so I don’t waste my time in their main engines. News? I use a specialized search for that too. Podcasts? Blogs? Ditto on both.

The main engines, IMO, are there as a last ditch result when no other better specialized engine exist. Yahoo seems to understand the power of specialized search better than Google and MSN, but I predict we’ll see more and more specialized search engines from these two in the future, because that is where the search relevancy wars need to be fought: not in the main engine which for all anybody cares can be trillions and trillions of pages. I’m not going to a warehouse to buy a pack of gum, I’ll buy that at the local convenience store.

I’ve compared Yahoo, MSN and Google main engines in detail here before and in the searches where I know the source material fairly well, Google has fared the best. Yes, Yahoo and MSN have improved, but let’s be serious about the #1 indicator of relevancy.

Traffic from those main search results. This morning Google has sent this blog some 90% of all search engine result traffic. 90%! Heck, being on the Feedster Top 500 list has sent more traffic today than Yahoo and MSN combined! This is pretty authoratative proof of which search engine is best for my business. It echoes what I find when I conduct many, many searches. Google keeps track of the searches I’m making and it’s something like two dozen a day on average.

When evaluating traffic coming as a result of user searches being made to our websites Google is — and has been for quite some time — the hands-down winner. Furthermore, Google is willing to pay us via Adsense for helping users find information on this (and our other) websites, how great is that?!

I haven’t been able to get the YPN to return a freaking email. Sad.

If/when Yahoo, MSN and other contenders can form a similar mutually beneficial partnership with me as Google, then I’ll be there in a nanosecond. I don’t like putting too many eggs in one basket. Until these other deals appear however, and along with tons of others, I’m sure, nobody really cares who’s packing Mt. Everest in their trousers, er, mmm, index size, that is.

• Yahoo Mindset: shopping to research
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• Google stops counting, plays “more comprehensive” card
• Google offers specialized source code search
• Google, Yahoo and Microsoft can agree on something search-oriented