Battle of the Search Engines: The Results

We're excited to announce the results of our most challenging software testing competition to date: The Battle of the Search Engines. For one week in August, more than 1,100 testers from 50+ countries reported bugs in Yahoo!, Bing, Google and Google Caffeine. In addition to the bug-hunting, testers also ranked each engine based on search results accuracy, page load speed, real-time relevance and usability.

In all, testers found a combined total of 606 bugs, with 13% of those classified as "showstoppers" - bugs in need of immediate attention. Here are a few more top-line findings:

  • Nearly 90 percent of all survey respondents said that Google was their favorite search engine; however, 10 percent said after testing all three, they would now make Bing their default engine.
  • More than 30 percent noted that Bing surprised them favorably.
  • An overwhelming 71 percent identified search results accuracy as their most important criteria when choosing a search engine.
  • In terms of accuracy, Google led the way with a top two box score (those rating it as “excellent” or “good”) of 90 percent. Google Caffeine followed closely with 83 percent. Yahoo and Bing trailed with 53 and 42 percent, respectively.

For a complete run-down on the results, be sure to download our detailed report.

Here are the Bug Battle winners from our global community, separated by category:

The Winners:

Award Name Country Prize
Overall
Top Tester
Top Novice

Joseph Ours
Max Sterneck

USA
Japan

$500
$250

Pradeep Soundararajan
Bernard Lelchuk
Joseph Ours
Vinutha Devendrappa (TCL India)
Eureka Lopes

India
Israel
USA
India
USA

$400
$300
$200
$100
$50

Ranchhod Prajapati
Joseph Ours
Bernard Lelchuk
Atul Angra
Vikas Badgujar

India
USA
Israel
India
India

$400
$300
$200
$100
$50
Lucia Maldonado
Dario Nemchin
Camelia Balan
Meiling Yang
Amit Kulkarni
Dipali Vaidya
Murali Uppalwar
Parimala Shankaraiah
Mangesh Kagale
Nandagopal Rajagopal
Stefen Niemeyer
Namali Ratnayake
Jyoti Sheth
Azzouzi Wassim
Joelle Godfrey
Matias Miranda
Mariellen Puckett
Argentina
Argentina
Canada
China
India
India
India
India
India
India
Germany
Sri Lanka
Sweden
Tunisia
USA
USA
USA
$50
$50
$50
$50
$50
$50
$50
$50
$50
$50
$50
$50
$50
$50
$50
$50
$50

Congratulations to the Bug Battle winners, and of course, a big thanks to all those from the uTest community who participated.

Have suggestions for our next Bug Battle? Let us know at marketing@utest.com.