Comparing internet search engines - Essay Example

Excite does have such categorization; however the classification with regard to sponsored links and common links are not evident from the search engine. The usability of Alta Vista is larger than Excite. Page layout is better in Alta Vista than Excite. It scores better in usability as per Neilson (2007) which stresses on white background and blue in the pages. The standard links in blue also make a large impact in determining the visibility of the links on the white background. Use of wildcards is quite evident in Alta Vista which is one of the prime features in this search engine.

The use of wild cards would not result in any search help in Excite as the feature is not visible. The proximity of searching is done for fetching the closest words near to the meaning of the words to be searched. The idea is to search the relative keywords for the words supplied for searching. The feature of large importance is the search results. It is justified in case of Excite to have so less search results, that the connector element is OR, so it puts an OR clause between every keyword which makes it vulnerable to search less.

This is one of the biggest disadvantages of Excite. On the other hand, Alta Vista puts an AND clause in between the words to search the topic and ensure that all the various searches are enlisted at large. This provides a very close match for the topic. The page payout is simple and search results are faster in Alta vista in spite of its display of million records. In comparison, some of the links and features like the drop down button at the top left corner of the Excite search give an error page.

Hyperlinks follow standard HTML conventions; they are blue and underlined providing clarity to the user. Links are self-describing and adhere to the heuristic guideline speak the users language (Singh, 2003). A point of difference is that, Excite uses other search engines for displaying content and this is evident from the option it