As a local computer tech I get asked quite often about which search engine I use. I used to always say google as I have been an avid user of google since it’s inception. For some reason I no longer have a good answer for that. However in the recent years I couldn’t help but notice that my efforts in seo has changed my mind about which search engines I use and when.

Since I am always creating new websites and working on old ones it’s easy to notice that among the three majors(google, msn, yahoo) they rank differently. Google prefers old well developed sites, Yahoo likes sites that are focused on one subject. MSN likes keyword rich sites that are updated often.

This, over time, has forced me to change my views on which search engines I actually use. Now when I want to find information on a relatively new topic such as political topics and recent events, I use msn because I tend to find better, more recent information, from all the new sites that have popped up out of the wood works from the event. When I need to find article style information about a wide topic I now use Yahoo because it tends to produce sites that are 100% dedicated torwards that topic(ie real estate in new hampshire). May I point out at this point that google sucks for these type of queries because it will usually put the big old sites that just happen put a little sniplet of worthless information or comment about the subject(s). I can’t tell you how annoyed I am at finding amazon.com in the top ten on almost every single search I do on google. They are a good site but they aren’t the world, and they rarely are what I’m wanting to find. On the other hand Google’s great if I am in the researching mood. I definitely use google because it brings me the sites that have been proven to give me the best information(ie. if I’m looking for something about the civil war or that time I drank too much and caused a riot).

The way I see it is all three search engines have too many flaws to stick to just one. It’s better to just use the advantages of each one when they are needed.

Whats your thoughts on this? Will there ever be a search engine that hits that happy medium target?