1999 Comparisons: Search Test Results


1999 Update | List of Sites | Search Strategies | Results by Site | Results by Question | Tips | 1999 Best

Table 1: Health Science Search Engines

Sites Achoo Biosites Cliniweb Dr. Koop HealthAtoZ Healthfinder HealthLinks HealthWeb HON HSLS Magellan MedExplorer Medical Matrix
Consumer                          
Avg # Hits 34 2 1 32 2,974 38 17 83 59 4 11,528 30 91
Avg Relevancy Rank 3.00 4.50 4.00 2.00 1.00 2.00 2.50 1.00 2.50 4.00 2.50 4.00 1.50
Clinical                          
Avg # Hits 0 0 0 0 1,154 0 0 2 4 0 12,469 0 133
Avg # Secondary Hits 20 1 2 39 263 31 11 24 13 2 7,953 13 16
Avg Relevancy Rank 6.00 6.00 6.00 6.00 4.00 6.00 6.00 5.00 4.00 6.00 2.50 6.00 3.50
Avg Secondary Relevance 4.33 5.67 4.67 3.67 3.00 4.33 5.67 5.00 4.33 5.33 3.33 4.33 4.33
Sites Medline Plus MedScape MedWeb (Emory) MedWebPlus MMRL NOAH OMNI OnHealth The Health Channel VH WebDoctor WebMD WWWVL
Consumer                          
Avg # Hits 44 170 34 35 69 32 18 111 35,239 109 10 19,517 2
Avg Relevancy Rank 1.00 3.00 2.00 4.50 3.00 2.50 1.50 2.00 2.50 3.00 1.00 1.00 4.00
Clinical                          
Avg # Hits 0 2 0 38 1 40 0 0 11,063 0 0 32,690 1
Avg # Secondary Hits 0 115 11 24 13 40 12 102 17,477 91 25 3,088 0
Avg Relevancy Rank 6.00 4.00 6.00 6.00 5.00 5.50 6.00 6.00 5.00 6.00 6.00 1.50 2.00
Avg Secondary Relevance 6.00 3.67 5.33 5.00 4.33 5.33 4.67 4.33 5.00 4.67 5.67 4.33 6.00

Table 2: General Search Engines

Sites Altavista Cyber411 DogPile Excite Fast Galaxy Google GoTo Hotbot InferenceFind InfoSeek LookSmart Lycos
Consumer                          
Avg # Hits 99,406 40 122,418 235,788 406,210 878 9,928 240 31,810 10 1,694,969 109 200
Avg Relevancy Rank 1.00 4.50 1.00 1.50 1.00 3.00 1.00 3.50 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.50 3.00
Clinical                          
Avg # Hits 376,652 50 372,245 319,969 666,780 1,291 2,425 240 575 10 2,090,382 2 200
Avg # Secondary Hits 227,081 62 267,854 163,641 348,050 474 7,258 240 41,680 7 1,631,893 67 200
Avg Relevancy Rank 4.50 4.00 1.50 2.50 1.00 3.00 2.00 3.50 1.50 2.50 3.50 5.00 3.00
Avg Secondary Relevance 3.67 4.33 3.33 4.00 2.67 4.67 4.00 4.33 3.67 4.33 4.33 4.33 4.00
Sites Magellan MetaCrawler MetaFind MSN Northern Light Open Directory PlanetSearch SavvySearch Search Snap WebCrawler WhatUSeek Yahoo
Consumer                          
Avg # Hits 11,361 59 47 51,379 165,029 114 76,560 55 1,694,969 92 11,138 354,316 223
Avg Relevancy Rank 1.50 1.50 2.00 4.00 1.50 2.00 2.00 2.00 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 2.00
Clinical                          
Avg # Hits 15,135 48 38 1,048 3,115 112 116,336 62 2,090,372 7,880 12,847 700,658 5
Avg # Secondary Hits 8,087 58 46 63,530 242,266 47 64,914 54 1,631,893 2,522 7,019 406,313 130
Avg Relevancy Rank 3.50 2.00 5.00 3.50 1.50 5.50 3.00 1.50 1.50 3.00 3.00 3.00 4.00
Avg Secondary Relevance 4.00 3.33 5.00 5.00 3.67 5.00 4.00 3.67 3.67 4.33 4.00 3.67 4.00

Table 3: Composite Scores

Averages Across All HS Sites General
Consumer      
Avg # Hits 96877 2703 191052
Avg Relevancy Rank 2.17 2.52 1.83
Clinical      
Avg # Hits 131463 2215 260710
Avg # Secondary Hits 98938 1130 196746
Avg Relevancy Rank 4.03 5.08 2.98
Avg Secondary Relevance 4.37 4.71 4.04
   

Legend

Relevancy Rankings:
1 = relevant results, most relevant listed first
2 = some relevant results, some not, ranked
3 = some relevant results, some not, no ranking
4 = possibly relevant results, must dig to find
5 = mostly irrelevant results, top ranked results not relevant
6 = no hits or no relevant topics on first page
   

NOTES:

Please note that the higher the number in a relevancy score, the poorer the actual performance of the search engine.
URL of current page: http://www.umich.edu/~pfa/megasite/srchcomp.html
Last updated: September 27, 1999.
Copyright 1997, 1998, 1999, P. F. Anderson, Nancy Allee.