Microsoft have not got a chance, I even use google to search their MSDN site, instead of Live.

Yahoo never returns anything of use and I think a lot of the time they sneak in an Advert in the results.

Ask.com, do they even have a search algorythm or is it just microsoft indexing ?

Google just happens to be the best of a bad bunch. But Microsofts search technology is terrible... my tip for finding stuff on their knowledgebase is to seach for the most unrelated thing to your problem you can think of... Its the best chance to find what you want.

Google may be going to far if they decide to give multiple search results for videos, images, webpages etc. all on the one page.

Currently the nice simple design and good search results is what keeps me and everyone else coming back - unlike Yahoo and MSN I am not inundated with crap I do not want to see. If I want an image I click the images tab and do a search from there, if i want a video I just type "video" next to my search query. If it's news I am after then the News tab does it... It's clean simple and nice.

I am hoping they don't go a step too far in their quest for dominance and spoil one of the aspects of Google which keeps people coming back, they may have complex algorithms working for us behind the scenes but its the simplicity of it all that everyone likes.

Maybe the number of searches has increased because people are having to do more searches to get the results they need?

You're trying to find out why your laptop has a problem, so you type in the model number, and all you get are those "deals" websites. So you refine your search and again, the top 200 results are sales sites, some from the other side of the world. Completely and utterly useless. So you revise the search again, and again, and again... until you get lucky and the query appears verbatim on some website which is all you really wanted in the first place. But instead you had to do a half dozen searches. I don't remember it being as bad a few years ago, good results were easier to find.

If you're in the US, use Goodsearch instead. Yeah, they use Yahoo, but you get money for your favorite charity. And if you don't have one, try Corgiaid :-)

Dillon, VP of Corgiaid, a 501(c)3