Comparing Mobile Search Engines
Yesterday, AOL unveiled the latest version of their AOL Mobile Search engine. It has some whizz-bang features (i.e. tabbed results) for Windows Mobile powered phones, which I won’t be able to show (since I have a Treo 650). However, I will compare the AOL Mobile Search with the 3 major search engines : Google, MSN and Yahoo.
Why is Mobile Search important?
Ten years ago, it was very rare for someone to have a mobile phone. Nowadays, the reverse is true — you’d have to think long and hard to pinpoint someone you can’t call on a mobile phone. Over the years we have seen the growth of two separate Internets: the mobile Internet (WAP) and the fixed (broadband) Internet. Newer technologies, more powerful phones and faster mobile data speeds have caused the lines between these two Internets.
Just as we expect to have a dial tone on a fixed line phone (remember those), we now tend to expect Internet to be available everywhere on our mobile phones. Search (more specifically, mobile search) helps us sift through the noise to get to what we want : instant results of relevant content.
How the testing was done
All the screenshots shown were taken directly from my Treo 650. As a test search term, I used the seafood restaurant made famous by the iPhone commercial, Pacific Catch. The objective is to find the address and phone number of a Pacific Catch restaurant. I set my location as “San Francisco, California, USA”. Apparently, there are other towns/cities named San Francisco elsewhere in the world, a fact I learnt from the MSN Live preference settings.
The initial results from AOL Mobile Search were disappointing. The first results were local results, however none were Pacific Catch restaurant. The first result was Hotel Nikko, which is obviously wrong. Although they could serve perfectly decent seafood.
After the Local listings are some News headlines, which are also not relevant. So, on first impression, AOL Mobile Search didn’t know what we meant by Pacific Catch. However, the next results are Images, which include the interior and the layout plan of a Pacific Catch restaurant.
The final listings are Web search results, and the first result is the Pacific Catch website. AOL needs to put a bit more work on this. We shouldn’t expect users to have to scroll all the way down to get to a relevant result.
Google Mobile Search does a better job than AOL. The first results are immediately useful, with addresses and phone numbers of the nearest Pacific Catch restaurant.
The next results are Web search entries, with the first being the Pacific Catch website.
Google does not include Images in the main results page, but adds links to Images and News results instead. One thing I discovered while playing around with the Google Mobile Search is that you can set for google to automatically format the linked web pages for your mobile phone.
MSN Live Search also found the nearest Pacific Catch restaurant immediately. I found that if you do not set your local location in preferences, the first results to come out will be Web results.
MSN also shows Images in the main results page. Interestingly enough, Web search results are a separate link, along with Maps, News and the social networking Spaces results.
Yahoo’s search results were the most comprehensive, however we don’t see the local information immediately. The first results are Web results, with the first entry being the Pacific Catch website.
The next level is the Mobile Web search results.
The third level is Photos, followed by News Headlines (which were not very relevant, by the way).
Finally, we get to the fifth level of search results, which is Nearby Businesses. This is where we finally find information on the nearest Pacific Catch restaurant. Do note that you need to sign in using your Yahoo ID in order to make use of your location information, otherwise it will skip this category altogether.
Since all this information was in one single page, Yahoo’s search result was the longest to fully download and render.
Conclusions
Google and MSN gave the relevant result first, with MSN doing the better job in formatting and presentation. Yahoo gave the relevant result, but put it at the very bottom of the results page. AOL failed to provide the relevant information in the first results page.
Obviously, this is a non-scientific analysis, covering just one simple comparison of a single search term across 4 mobile search engines. I hope the visuals would give a good impression of what each search engine will look like on your phone.
I believe all the 4 search engines are still in beta. This is also reflected by the fact that it’s not easy to find these search engines. Each one has a unique and non-intuitive URL.
Mobile search is still growing up and has a long way to go. Usability is still iffy — there’s a very delicate balance between getting enough useful information in your small screen and too much data. With a global audience, defining “local” is certainly a large challenge enough on its own.
Filed under: Mobile Web Sites
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