Snap: Is This Really a Better Way to Search? - Performance
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For my search queries, Snap delivered on all terms, including the scientific terms "mechatronics" and "cytometry." It fortunately did not take me first to the ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) pages which Google does consistently(after paid listings asking me to buy some book). Instead, it took me to "robot assembly tips." This shows me what I already know: most people searching on the term "mechatronics" (which means mechanical and electronic) used the free robot assembly tips pages more than the "members only" ASME pages.
For cytometry, my accomplice confirmed the trend: Snap skips the "buy me" sites and goes to abstracts and journals. This behavior is very similar to Ask's. Another point worth noting is that, apart from some similarities in SERPs (some, not too much), Snap shares a couple of other "cool" features with http://www.ask.com/, who by the way are partners of Snap.
For Daniel Craig, Snap delivered interviews with Daniel Craig, and not a bunch of news for "Daniel Craig is the new 007!" Still, it seemingly couldn't translate my "lyrics for buttons by PCD" into "lyrics for buttons by Pussy Cat Dolls," so I received no results. In Snap's defense most of the other search engines floundered until I changed PCD to Pussy Cat Dolls (for which I found one listing with quotes, and seven without). I found no advanced search buttons (they either do not exist or I missed them), no image search, no blog search, and no features which would allow me to check for videos, music or other things. I guess we will have to wait for upgrades. [Snap appears to have added an image search very recently. --Ed.]
Gripes
One of my accomplices complained about irrelevant listings when searching for "Purdue." She also complained that there were no maps or images of maps in the first few listings. She said that the text on the preview pane is too small for her to read, but she calmed down when I pointed out the "settings" button used to change size. Consider this a warning to Google lovers: Snap takes getting used to. It's actually different.
Cool Factor
The major cool factor is the preview feature. I discovered that it lets you view the pages and decide whether you want to go there or not. The left pane shows the page summary and the right pane shows a screen shot of the landing page. This is super cool; you read and view the landing page, decide whether it is relevant or not before clicking on it (which it often is; the users have spoken). I can almost guarantee you will deep crawl every page you land on (view at least three pages on the site including the landing page).
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