Recently, Google announced a "groundbreaking" change to the way it serves search results. Essentially from this day forward, Google was going to serve results from all their properties which may match a search query, and not just results from it's search index.
In other words, a search for a Canon digital camera may not only return results from the main search index, but also shopping results, news results, and video results (among others).
In fact, Google has been doing this for some time, however they explain that the results will become more noticeable as time goes on.
But Google isn't the only one jumping into the "Universal search" field. Ask has been doing this for some time, and recently Yahoo updated it's search results with similar universal results.
So who is most effective at this new type of search?
I did a couple searches for items which one would think would be classed as "universal" and the results surprised me, to put it bluntly. Remember, this is not a scientific study, just an informal "I wonder what if" search.
For my first test I searched for "Hilton san francisco" without quotes on Google, Yahoo, Ask and MSN. Here is what I found:
Google - a surprising lack of universal results. This search only returned regular organic results. However I did find a link under the third result to a map which displayed immediately below that result. A far cry, in my opinion from what Google said they would offer. I give this the fourth spot out of the four engines
Yahoo - Probably the best result of the 4 engines tested. A search returned a map with links to not one but 3 Hilton hotels in San Fransisco above the regular organic results. Definitely #1 of the four.
MSN - Not too bad. It did provide some links to three local results with addresses and phone numbers to 3 Hilton's. I rate this as the third of the four sites.
Ask - Even though the Ask results were similar to MSN's I give this the second highest rating simply because the page offers more ability to refine your results. In addition to 3 local results above the regular organic results, Ask offers a link to local results in San Francisco, MO if you didn't mean CA results, as well as the ability to broaden or narrow your search with easily visible (and clickable) links on the right.
For my next search, I decided to perform a product search. I searched for "Panasonic cordless phone" again without the quotes. I used this term because I wanted a product search and it was the first thing my eyes landed on - my cordless phone.
Google - again disappointing results - no product specific results whatsoever. It used to be that almost every product query you used returned Froogle (now Google product search) results. At least with this product search I didn't get any product information, such as models, pricing or pictures. Google narrowly beats Yahoo for last place.
Yahoo - when I heard of the new shortcuts Yahoo was adding to their search results, I assumed we'd see them for many more searches all at once, but perhaps that isn't the case. I found only one product listing in the Yahoo search, with no pictures or pricing. While it was a "Yahoo Shortcut" link, what was displayed was disappointing. Yahoo placed third out of four on this search.
MSN - while MSN earned second for this search, it was only marginally better because like Yahoo it only offered links with no pictures. However it did offer 3 links, and give some useful information such as pricing and model numbers. As suggested, MSN gets second out of four.
Ask - by far the best result in my opinion. Not only are there the "expand" or "narrow" links but Ask actually displayed not only models and pricing, but also pictures and reviews! Definitely the #1 result out of the four engines.
For my final search I looked for a current movie. At the time of this writing "Rush Hour 3" had recently opened in theaters. So I searched for that phrase, again without quotes.
Google - At least for this search it wasn't last. However I find it wasn't as appealing as the other engines. While it did give users the ability to find US show times by city or zip, and it did provide some news links, that was about it. No images or anything else visually appealing. Third out of four.
Yahoo - Yahoo's results are very similar to Google's but I gave it a slight advantage because there were shortcuts to a trailer, reviews and the Yahoo Movies pages relating to the movie. It came in second out of four.
MSN - I gave MSN the last spot because while the results were similar to Google's they didn't offer any way to find out where the movie was playing. Just regular links to news results and normal organic listings.
Ask - Again number one out of four in my opinion because it offered more universal results than any of the other engines. While it didn't offer a way to find the show time in my area, it offered links to news and images and trailers right from the search results page.
Conclusion
I think it is clear that Ask is the current winner in the universal search battle. It offers the most options for some of the more typical types of searches I would think people turn to search engines for. Whether it is a product search, a local search or an entertainment search, Ask provided the best results in my opinion.
Google was the worst despite the fact that they had a big press event a few weeks ago discussing universal search. Despite that, we should see some noticeable improvements by Google in this field in the coming months.
Yahoo and MSN fell somewhere in between, but I give the edge to Yahoo, making it the #2 engine for universal results. It is the one engine that has actually delivered on its promise of enhanced listings (save for Ask which didn't really announce it, it just did it).
And I think if you were to do a more in-depth review of just Yahoo and Ask I think Yahoo might just edge out Ask simply because it's shortcuts offer links to more information in the end.
But for right now my simple little experiment, which was in no way scientific, I find Ask to be the current leader in universal search, with Yahoo following closely in second.