With all these announcements around web search engines being acquired, I thought I would give some of them a try to see how they compare to Google. I didn't do an exhaustive study, but innovation and competition seems to be alive and thriving in the search space. Search engines such as Teoma and AllTheWeb have features similar to Google but they also have additional features such as query refinement and multimedia specific search that are not provided by Google.

Google is still the King of web searches with around 250 million searches per day, which is significantly higher than AltaVista's 18 million searches per day and AllTheWeb's 12 million search per day. However, the cost of switching search engines isn't really very high. Unlike enterprise software platforms where you have an installed base of customers and applications, the cost of switching search engines is switching URL's. I still remember when AltaVista and HotBot were the premier search engines. Google might be ahead now, but if they stumble, they could be left in the dust by another startup or maybe even a new-and-improved search engine from the past.