At a seminar the other day the speaker mentioned that Google’s market share in Finland is one of its highest anywhere: roughly 90% of Finns use Google as their default search engine. The same day, as I got home, I experimented a little. I first googled (http://www.google.fi) my company Great Point, and it came up as number six on the search. But when I yahooed it (http://fi.search.yahoo.com), it came up as number one! Google 0 - Yahoo 1, since these are search engines customized for Finland, and here my Great Point is the only one. On the Finnish search engine www.fi it came up second. Former Ask Jeeves, now just Ask (http://www.ask.com) did not find it at all.
Then I googled my own name to find out how relevant the search engine thought Great Point is if someone is trying to learn things about Jaakko Tapaninen (it is by far the best source). After all sorts of references to all possible things related and not related to me, link to www.greatpoint. fi came up as number 92 on Google. Not very good. No one looks at anything that ranks 92. When punched my name into Yahoo!, www.greatpoint.fi came up as number 9! And what was just as interesting was that most of the stuff on the first page was far more fresh and relevant than the oddities that Google dug up. When I asked Ask.com, it did not find my Great Point at all, but all sorts references to English-Language sites where my name is mentioned. It was interesting though, since this was stuff I did not know existed. But how about the Finnish engine www.fi? When the first 50 references did not link my name with my company, I gave up.
So, the next time you want to know how you look in cyberspace, try yahooing yourself for a change. And if like what you find, hey, maybe you should use it for other stuff too.
