• by David Berkowitz , October 7, 2008

With browsers turning their address bars into search bars, as we discussed last week, which browser delivers the best search experience?

I assembled a panel of judges (OK, me) and put together a scientifically ironclad roster of searches (what came to mind while watching TV Sunday night) and put them to the test. All searches were conducted at the same time. The goal was to discover which browsers among Firefox 3.0.3, Google Chrome 0.2.149.30, and Internet Explorer 8.0.6 (the latest versions) were the best at delivering the most relevant sites from searches conducted through their address bars. When results led to a page of search results, I stuck with the browsers' default engines: Google for Chrome and Firefox, and Live Search for IE8.

Shamwow
I saw a commercial for the Shamwow, a towel that sops up everything. By the looks of it, you can put this towel in the Atlantic Ocean, sop it all up, and then dump it out in the Pacific. If we haven't figured out enough ways to screw with the planet, this might be the next best thing to cloud seeding.
Firefox: It went right to Shamwow.com, the official site.
Chrome: It brought up a search, with Shamwow.com listed first.
IE: It brought up a search, with an ad for rival cloth Zorbees advertising above Shamwow.com as the first natural link.
Verdict: Firefox is a time-saver here.

Giants
For sports fans, this is a somewhat ambiguous search. According to Google Trends, searches for the San Francisco Giants tend to be highest March through August (a sign of a team not often in playoff contention), and searches for New York Giants surge August through early January (last season's Super Bowl run was one major exception, reaching record levels in early February). Since 2004, searches on the generic "giants" have been 10 times either of the locally modified queries. Right now, of course, it's football season, so engines could presumably tweak results based on what's currently relevant.
Firefox: It led to Google's search results with a brief football box score from NFL.com followed by the NY Giants official site at Giants.com.
Chrome: Same as Firefox.
IE: Its search results brought up Giants.com as the top link.
Verdict: For someone who sought a quick recap of the game, Chrome won out by providing relevant information, more than was easily evident on Giants.com with a quick scan.

Mortgage Rates
Many now are more worried about qualifying for a mortgage rather than just the rates, but it's still a perennially hot search.
Firefox: You're taken directly to Bankrate.com. How's that for prime placement?
Google: Search results have Mortgage101.com as the top natural result, under a slew of ads.
IE: Bankrate tops the search results, but well down the page under ads and a section for top news articles.

Mortgage Calculator
After the first test, I went back to Google Trends and found this query is more than twice as popular as "mortgage rates", and it's typically more of a 3:1 margin, except for Q1 2008, where rates twice briefly topped calculators.
Firefox: It brought me right to mortgage-calc.com.
Chrome: Search results had the same site up top for natural results.
IE: Its search results had Bankrate on top, preventing Mortgage-Calc.com from the hatrick.

Obama and McCain
I ran the one-word last-name searches.
Firefox: You go right to barackobama.com and johnmccain.com. I just noticed, in a somewhat ironic twist given their demographic strengths, that Obama's site looks far more buttoned up and McCain's looks much more youthful.
Chrome: Search results have the candidates' official sites on top.
IE: For Obama, search results have two ads on top -- first for the official site, and then, puzzlingly, for search.live.com/cashback, where you can buy Obama books and Halloween masks. Then there are images, news results, and then the official site topping natural results. For McCain, there's just the one ad for McCain's site, then several news results, and then Wikipedia's McCain page topping McCain.com.

MediaPost
Firefox goes to MediaPost.com. Chrome and IE search, with MediaPost.com coming out on top.

Apple
Same as MediaPost, with Firefox directing to Apple.com and the others searching.