The other day I noted that A9.com had switched from Google to Windows Live search, and wondered if I’d notice a difference.
Indeed I have! First, I discovered that the image results column has disappeared. I opened the “More Choices” menu thinking I’d find an alternative service at or near the top of the list. No dice – I guess I’ll have to browse the 300+ options and see if one of them meets that need. Drag.
I didn’t see the difference in search results until this morning. My wife will need our car in order to run some errands tomorrow, so I did an A9 search on “Seattle Transit” in order to find local bus schedules.
Before the switch, the King County Metro Online home page – exactly the site I need right now – was at the top of my A9 search results. What does Live think I’m looking for? Here’s the list of top A9 results today:
- Seattle Monorail Project
- Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel – Home Page
- Contact Us/List of Project Managers – Dowtown Seattle Transit Tunnel
- Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel Closure
- Seattle.gov – Transportation – Transit and Commuting – Pedestrian
- Information Seattle, The Emerald City
- Information Seattle, The Emerald City
- Seattle.gov – Transit and Commuting
- Seattle.gov – Transportation
- Seattle Channel – Sound Transit Light Rail In-depth
- Smart Trek > Your Traffic Information Source for the Puget Sound
- King County Metro Transit
It’s possible that the info that I want is available through one of the 11 other sites above King County Metro Transit, right? So I clicked the most likely option, Seattle.gov – Transit and Commuting. Three clicks later, I was at the King County Metro Transit trip planner. A Google search gets me there in one.
MAN.
This weekend, I’m going to see a friend of mine who works at Amazon, the guy who told me about A9 in the first place. I’m gonna needle him mercilessly about this.
Tags: A9, Windows Live, Google, Amazon
Wade Rockett 
I, for one, am very unhappy with A9.com. You’re the one who turned me on to it–and it has become my search engine of choice. But I’m with you — the lack of image results is a drag (and can’t find out how to turn it back on), and the search results are not nearly as pertinent as they used to be. I’ve gone back to google.