Pizza in Redmond

Microsoft has supposedly vastly improved their MSN search engine, and have been touting such claims in ads including this one, that shows a search for "Pizza in Redmond":

After seeing that sign, I couldn't resist plugging that phrase into the MSN Search engine and a few other big search sites, just as an experiment to see how the results would compare. Looking at each of them, it's pretty easy to conclude that the other three provide more useful results than MSN Search does for someone looking for pizza in Redmond. Click through these links to see for yourself:

• Google
  
  
• Yahoo Search
  
  
• MSN Search
  
  
• Ask Jeeves

But then I looked more closely and realized that the advertising sign was promoting the "search near me" feature in MSN Search. So I readjusted my settings to put my location in Redmond, and did a simple search for "pizza" under that geographic constraint. The first non-sponsored result? Janitorial supplies.

Not wanting to rush to judgment, I also tried a search for the full phrase, Pizza in Redmond, under the Redmond geographic constraint, even though that would seem redundant. The first non-sponsored result was the resume of an aspiring computer programmer whose past experience included a stint as a delivery driver for Papa John's Pizza in Redmond. Just to be complete, I also tried the search under the Redmond geographic constraint with quotes around the phrase. Not much better.

Of course, the real kicker is to try the "pizza in redmond" search in Google's new Google Maps beta site, which is specifically tailored for geographic searches. Click here for the result.