How Many Pages in Google? Take a Guess
In the bitter war of words between Google and Yahoo over search-engine index size, Google has decided to give its latest answer in the form of a question.
The company said yesterday that it had phased in a larger index over the last four weeks. But rather than directly proclaiming that it had surpassed its archrival Yahoo, which last month claimed index supremacy, Google said it would ask Web surfers to decide for themselves.Google's chief executive, Eric E. Schmidt, said the company would remove the current number from its home page ("Searching 8,168,684,336 Web pages," it said yesterday) and instead ask users to guess the size of the new index.
Moreover, in typical offbeat Google style, there will be no announced prize for the best guess, although Mr. Schmidt did not rule out the possibility that one would be awarded."We're suggesting that users do a little taste test," he said in a telephone interview.
Google said it would post guidelines to help users make their own comparisons on its Web log at googleblog.blogspot.com.Although Google would not specify the new index size, Mr. Schmidt said Google technologists said it was about three times the size of its nearest competitor - a competitor he would not name.
googleblog
"We have a very specific way of counting that we believe is very accurate," he said.
In response, Yahoo issued a statement saying: "We congratulate Google on removing the index size number from its home page and recognizing that it is a meaningless number. As we've said in the past, what matters is that consumers find what they are looking for, and we invite Google users to compare their results to Yahoo Search."
Several search-engine industry executives have said that the one-upmanship on index size is not useful for consumers. They contend that the relevance and freshness of search results are more important.
Last month, Yahoo said it believed that it had the largest search-engine index, tracking 19.2 billion documents. The assertion outraged Google's executives, who asserted that Yahoo was overestimating its index by counting duplicate information.
"This will probably calm some of this thing down," Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Watch, an online publication, said of Google's latest maneuver. There is no reasonable way for an objective third party to make an accurate and independent count of the index sizes, he said.
Mr. Schmidt did not say what would happen if someone from Yahoo made the most accurate guess.
The company said yesterday that it had phased in a larger index over the last four weeks. But rather than directly proclaiming that it had surpassed its archrival Yahoo, which last month claimed index supremacy, Google said it would ask Web surfers to decide for themselves.Google's chief executive, Eric E. Schmidt, said the company would remove the current number from its home page ("Searching 8,168,684,336 Web pages," it said yesterday) and instead ask users to guess the size of the new index.
Moreover, in typical offbeat Google style, there will be no announced prize for the best guess, although Mr. Schmidt did not rule out the possibility that one would be awarded."We're suggesting that users do a little taste test," he said in a telephone interview.
Google said it would post guidelines to help users make their own comparisons on its Web log at googleblog.blogspot.com.Although Google would not specify the new index size, Mr. Schmidt said Google technologists said it was about three times the size of its nearest competitor - a competitor he would not name.
googleblog
"We have a very specific way of counting that we believe is very accurate," he said.
In response, Yahoo issued a statement saying: "We congratulate Google on removing the index size number from its home page and recognizing that it is a meaningless number. As we've said in the past, what matters is that consumers find what they are looking for, and we invite Google users to compare their results to Yahoo Search."
Several search-engine industry executives have said that the one-upmanship on index size is not useful for consumers. They contend that the relevance and freshness of search results are more important.
Last month, Yahoo said it believed that it had the largest search-engine index, tracking 19.2 billion documents. The assertion outraged Google's executives, who asserted that Yahoo was overestimating its index by counting duplicate information.
"This will probably calm some of this thing down," Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Watch, an online publication, said of Google's latest maneuver. There is no reasonable way for an objective third party to make an accurate and independent count of the index sizes, he said.
Mr. Schmidt did not say what would happen if someone from Yahoo made the most accurate guess.
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