Although a number of good search engine firms don't like the way consumers have ?voted? with their browsers, the fact is that there is a group of second-tier search engines hovering around the 5% market share level. These are Ask.com, About.com and a few specialized search sites. There really is no question about who the big boys on the block are, and it hasn't changed much since the last millennium, either. It's Google at number one, with over 60% share, then Yahoo with 20% and MSN right under 10%.

Voted four times as the ?Most Outstanding Search Engine? by readers of the online outfit, Search Engine Watch, Google has a well-deserved reputation as the top choice for those searching the web. The crawler-based service provides both comprehensive coverage of the web along with great relevancy. It's highly recommended as a first stop in the hunt for whatever you are looking for.

Google wins big

Google provides the option to find more than just web pages, too. With just a click in the right place and your term(s) in the search field on Google's home page, you can easily

* seek out images from across the web

* join discussions that are taking place on Usenet newsgroups

* locate news and information or perform product searches and

* do the ultimate in comparison shopping

Under the More pop-up menu are additional links providing access to ?human-compiled? information, videos, books, scholarly aids, catalog searching and other fascinating and helpful services.

Google is famous for its many different features, like "cached links" allowing you to view "dead" pages, as well as previous versions of ones that have been altered. Dictionary definitions, phone numbers, stock quotes, street maps and many other kinds of information are easily accessed in Google. Refer to Google's help page for a complete explanation of these various features. Finally, the Google Toolbar and the various Google ?web apps? have also become quite popular.

Yahoo in a slide

Yahoo is the web's oldest "directory" or "hierarchical search site," a place where real, human editors organize sites into categories. It was launched in 1994, but in October 2002 Yahoo made a ?paradigm shift? to software-located listings for its main results rather than human editors. For several years, these automated results came from Google, until February 2004 when Yahoo began using its own searching and categorizing technologies. The "sense of community" that was a Yahoo priority from the start still distinguishes the site in many ways, and the site construction and organization attempt to make collaboration among people and companies easy, around the office or around the world.

Beyond the good-to-excellent search results, there are some Yahoo niceties that make searching enjoyable and simple. You can use the tabs above the search box on the Yahoo home page to look for images, Yellow Page listings or shopping comparisons. As opposed to the one-page Google home, Yahoo provides a separate "Search home page," where more numerous and more specialized search options are available to the motivated seeker.

What is MSN Search these days?

That question needs to be asked because MSN Search has changed its stripes a few times. It is now a crawler-based engine that only uses proprietary Microsoft technology in its search efforts. There are three important factors (probably many more, but these are the main ones) that MSN uses to put together its search index and individual results:

The automatic stuff: MSN Search's "spider" is named MSNBot, and it crawls the Web one individual link at a time to find pages that it will then add to the MSN index;

The human factor: After the automated actions have been taken, editors can still poke their noses into the process to "tweak" and refine the categories and links; and

The index generator: This clever technology sorts pages into subjects, directories, rankings and so forth. The best metaphor may be a post office, with every letter going into a certain slot according to zip code, street and number, mail type, etc.

Although it is in third place with under 10% of the current market share, MSN Search does have its devotees, as well as an army of detractors. For some people, Microsoft makes "good enough" software that is buggy and slow, and there have been complaints about MSN Search being sluggish and unresponsive. As usual, it comes down to personal tastes and needs.

Best of the best?

It seems that Google has been able to stay ahead of the race with nearly 63 percent share of the United States market in 2008, an 8 percent increase over the previous year according to ComScore. Yahoo, on the other hand, has been one of the biggest losers, with its share now just 20 percent, half of its peak during the last decade. MSN trails behind both with only 8.5% of market share, giving it even less reach and influence than Yahoo.

Although these search engines are all eminently usable, and satisfactorily direct you to the domains you're looking for, it seems that Google outshines its competitors with a certain brilliance. With the introduction of its web apps ? a browser, a Microsoft Office-compatible suite, an art program (Sketch) and other unique offerings ? Google is in a commanding position, and appears perfectly prepared to keep its luster over the coming years.