Reviewing the Best Sites on the Web, with some comments about technology and the internet along the way.

For this post, we compared shopping search engines when you know exactly what item you’re looking for.  We took products from ConsumerSearch recommendations, and also some deals from Dealnews.

Compared search engines:

PriceGrabber and Nextag often require one to sort by price first. But they go right to the item when its specific enough and otherwise let one select the specific item 1^st. They also include shipping in the price calculations.

PriceGrabber was able to understand a greater variety of search terms. Even if one put too much or too little information, it would provide good results. The problem is it isn’t fully comprehensive and does not return as many results as Nextag. But it was simpler to use.

Eliminated search engines:

Google Product is too confusing and often provides too many irrelevant results. It is the most comprehensive though, so it may be good for searching for uncommon items. Shopzilla/Bizrate is also a bit confusing, and sometimes doesn’t provide an intermidiate step to compare a specific item.

Conclusion: So far, it’s a tossup between PriceGrabber and Nextag. If they don’t In a later post, we’ll compare the search engines when one does not know excatly what he’s searching for.

Data

Further Searches based on ConsumerSearch reccomendations:

Sony Reader Touch Edition PRS-600  – PriceGrabber did the best.

Eureka 4870 – PriceGrabber didn’t have, NexTag did the best.

There are two main types of sites that Ezinagro will deal with: Sites that provide some sort of search and sites which provide a service themselves. This post will deal with Ezinagro’s criteria for selecting the best search sites. The user should be able to customize the search so he can find exactly what he’s looking for. The search should then be as comprehensive as possible, but be able to rank the results so the best results are on top. These are some general criteria we will examine:

• Speed & Ease of Use. The beginner should be able to quickly find what he needs.
• Organization & Customization. The interface should be well-organized and should have options that allow the user to find the exact item he is looking for.
• Comprehensiveness. It should not miss anything on the internet that the user might want.
• Finds Best Options. The best options should always come out on top so the user can immediately select them.
• Free. In most cases, the service should be provided free without any hassle.

A while ago, Microsoft launched a ‘new’ search engine entitled ‘Bing’. They spent $100 million on ads attacking ‘search overload’ (aka ‘Google’), and claiming their alternative site was a ‘Decision Engine’. Their criticism was valid. The problem with using a search engine is it returns millions of results and it’s hard to find the right sites. But Bing doesn’t really do much better, for most searches it returns results that are basically the same as Google’s. Web Directories give people a list of sites, but there’s still to much to choose from. What’s needed is a site that just gives people the best site in every category. That would be a true ‘decision engine’; you wouldn’t have to decide what site to go to. This is what Ezinagro tries to do. If a person needs something online, he can visit Ezinagro and click on their suggestion, and he’ll be brought to the best site in that category. Right now we’re small and we don’t have every category, but the plan is to grow to include many more sites. In the future, when you need a website, you may just be able to visit Ezinagro. Search engines beware!

I’m re-adjusting my plans for Ezinagro. This blog will discuss the internet, technology and review great websites. The top websites reviewed will be added to the Ezinagro directory, which will link back here for more information. So it will be probably be a gradually growing website. I’m now going to add the original posts from the Ezinagro Ezine.