Benefits of a Google Search

1. Your search covers more than 1 billion URLs.

Google's index, comprised of more than 1 billion URLs, is the first of its kind and represents the most comprehensive collection of the most useful web pages on the Internet. While index size alone is not the key determinant of quality results, it has an obvious effect on the likelihood of a relevant result being returned.
2. You'll see only pages that include the terms you type.

Unlike many other search engines, Google only produces results that match all of your search terms, either in the text of the page or in the text of the links pointing to the page. This spares you the frustration of viewing a multitude of results that have nothing to do with your search terms.
3. The position of your search terms is treated with respect.

Not only do Google's results contain all of your search terms, but Google also analyzes the proximity of those terms within the page. Google prioritizes results according to how closely your individual search terms appear and favors results that have your search terms near each other. Because of this, the result is much more likely to be relevant to your query.
4. You see what you're getting before you click.

Instead of web page summaries that never change, Google shows an excerpt (or "snippet") of the text that matches your query -- with your search terms in boldface -- right in the search results. This sneak preview gives you a good idea if a page is going to be relevant before you visit it.
5. You can feel lucky and save time doing it.

Google excels at producing extremely relevant results, and flat out nails many queries such as company names. We're so confident, in fact, that we've installed an "I'm Feeling Lucky" button, which takes you directly to the site of the highest ranked result in your search. Try it and let us know if our confidence is justified.
6. You can get it, even when it's gone.

As Google crawls the web, it takes a snapshot of each page and analyzes it to determine the page's relevance. You can access these cached pages if the original page is temporarily unavailable due to Internet congestion or server problems. Though the information on cached pages is frequently not the most recent version of a site, it usually contains useful information. Plus, your search terms will be highlighted in color on the cached page, making it easy to find the section of the page relevant to your query.
Google

Google searches more sites more quickly, to bring you the most relevant results

Introduction

Google runs on a unique combination of advanced hardware and software. The speed you experience can be attributed in part to the efficiency of our search algorithm and partly to the thousands of low cost PC's we've networked together to create a superfast search engine.

The heart of our software is PageRank(TM), a system for ranking web pages developed by our founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford University. And while we have dozens of engineers working to improve every aspect of Google on a daily basis, PageRank continues to provide the basis for all of our web search tools.

PageRank Explained

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important."

Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank, which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don't match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines all aspects of the page's content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it's a good match for your query.
Integrity

Google's complex, automated methods make human tampering with our results extremely difficult. And though we do run relevant ads above and next to our results, Google does not sell placement within the results themselves (i.e., no one can buy a higher PageRank). A Google search is an easy, honest and objective way to find high-quality websites with information relevant to your search.

BEST SEARCH ENGINE SITE: Google

This terrific new tool, which began as a Stanford University research project, yields relevant results using a complex mathematical formula. All you need to know is that it works—and fast, thanks to a large collection of cached pages. And it's the only search engine with an "I'm feeling lucky" option, which takes you directly to the first Web page retrieved by your query; it's a real time-saver if you're seeking a small bit of information, such as the name of a person or company.

ALSO: For the most efficient searching on multiple engines simultaneously, we like Meta Crawler. We gave it four stars back in February, and it lives up to its rating with speedy utility and relevance of results.

by Rob Bernstein