Comparing Google and Yahoo in Mobile Search

On Yahoo Mobile homepage, Yahoo launched a challenge to compare its new mobile search engine with Google's. Yahoo recommends you to download a PDF [ 13.1 MB ] that compares the search results for 16 general queries like: "New York", "George Bush", "iPod".

Unlike Google, that only shows web search results by default (and occasionally OneBox results), Yahoo shows the first results from a lot of specialized search engines for some queries. They call this "Yahoo oneSearch" (video) and it's the major feature of their new search engine.

Yahoo explains: "oneSearch results are delivered to you in a new, breakthrough format that redefines search for the mobile phone. It's all about getting instant answers with just one click—no need to sift through a bunch of links to find exactly what you're looking for. (...) oneSearch results are easy to read, scroll through, and expand when you want more information—like more images to view—with a single click. You don't have to "feel lucky" to be lucky every time with oneSearch."

I would argue that anything would be good to answer a such a general query like "New York" and Yahoo should've focused on more precise queries in their report. In fact, for most queries, Yahoo Mobile Search shows 3 web pages and 3 mobile web pages, while Google shows 10 web pages - that means Google shows more information and focuses on web pages, which are more numerous and more interesting than mobile web pages (compare the results for [Oscars 2007] in Yahoo and Google).



{ Thank you, Alexandru Dragan. }