Searching For The New Donkey Kong Record

I just watched King of Kong and, as is often the case after viewing a documentary, I went online afterwards to try and get an update on what happened since the film’s release.

I eventually learned that in July of 2007, the Donkey Kong record was retaken by Billy Mitchell in front of a live audience. This news was somewhat surprising in light of the depiction of Mitchell in the film. While I understand that this is not earth shattering news, I was still somewhat surprised that this news was not more obvious on Google.

So, I looked around at other search engines and found the following results when searching “donkey kong record”:

• Ask.com has the best article at the very top of the listing providing a direct link to a VH1 Article Talking About Mitchell Retaking The Record
• Google.com has a very old news story at the top of the listing. In second place is a story which incorrectly suggests that Steve Wiebe is the current record holder. The correct news story is located in the third position.

• Yahoo! puts the kotaku article that Google listed third, in first place. However, like Google it mostly lists outdated articles. To it’s credit, Yahoo does list an article from Twin Galaxies detailing the record. This valuable primary source listing, which Ask also listed on its front page doesn’t appear anywhere on Google’s front page.

This is certainly a difficult challenge, but I am so used to Google magically putting the best story at top, that I am surprised by the results of this quick survey.

Is Google no longer the best search engine in town?

Thursday March 6, 2008