I don’t know quite when it happened. I do remember the early days – the days of AltaVista and the instant movement when you changed your website code. I remember the trouble getting in to Yahoo!, the importance of being on DMOZ (I might still have a few editor IDs hanging out on there), WebFerret and Dogpile and I remember the revolution that was Google.

After that it is a bit of a fog of searches, search engines and a splash of colour. Somewhere between 2002 and now I seem to have become addicted to Google. It’s my searching buddy and gets opened along with HBX, Yahoo! and AdWords every morning after I turn on my computer.

It’s not just that I use Google for my searches – oh no. I have collected a plethora of that freebie Google gear you get at Google University. I also managed to score a Google mirror, nail file and water bottle from Girl Geek dinners (where I regrettably did not score as well on the lip balm… damnit!). Recently, my ad gal in Dublin sent me a Google t-shirt all the guys love (due to the tight, white nature of it) and a Google hat.

Looking at my Google-festooned workspace and home, I realised I had become addicted and realised I had to kick the habit – and hard. Danny’s article on Google-free Fridays seemed like the perfect opportunity to start quitting – much as the smokers here in the UK will on July 1^st. I already had Yahoo! open all day, I thought to myself, so it was just one more click to use it for search instead.

Forget Friday – I thought – I’m a girl geek! I’ll just do it now! So, intrepidly I stepped out in to the vast howling wilderness beyond the Google dominant market and typed my first query in to Yahoo. I’ll do something easy, I thought. The Chocolate Society – I want some good chocolate. WOOHOO! Score! But what is this – what kind of title… ooooohhhh… directory description. Still… I got news and email with my weather just before searching and I also seemed to have chat and… wow… kinda like a personalised home page and… must… not… go… to… Google… NYARGH!

Shuddering a little with the withdrawal and still needing to do more searching, I soldiered on. More and more searches whizzed past my fingers. ‘Go little search page, go!’ I thought to myself as I stepped boldly out of my comfort zone in to a brave new world of search. Gone was my underdog Ask whose t-shirt also graces me with less curviness at the gym. Gone was my Google page – my constant companion… my pet search engine. Here I was striding out in to Yahoo and I wasn’t getting hopelessly lost. WAHEY!

While as a SEM/SEO/SMO I cannot ever abandon Google completely, I think it is a great idea to give up our pets for a day – Google, Facebook, Neopet or otherwise (but not our cats… cats aren’t pets, they’re furry people). Like a good detox, getting away from Google for a bit is good for you but ultimately I’ll never give Google up.

Why not try it for a day yourself? Close that browser tab/window and leave Google behind for a day. Check out Yahoo!, Ask, and MSN/Live and see if another search engine won’t help you just as much. Yahoo is a fantastic portal and I do use it daily. Ask has a brand new interface all swishy and funky. MSN/Live may seem like it is struggling but it does power Miss Dewey – the perfect Friday afternoon companion.

Yahoo!
Ask
MSN/Live
Miss Dewey