Google v. Delicious

I am doing an experiment comparing the results from a Google search and a Delicious search for the same term, “common core standards”.  The results from the two searches were much more similar than I thought they would be.  Here are the screen shots from each search, cropped but not very professionally (Incidentally, this was the hardest part of this post!):

I couldn’t fit all the Delicious results onto one page without making the text microscopic, so I took two screenshots.  My laptop does not like the light blue text on the Delicious page.  I hope you can read them, and I've summarized the results below just in case you can't.

I noticed that there are three states whose Common Core websites appear on the first page of Google results. They are Illinois, Washington, and New York. There is also an article from the Washington Post, a Wikipedia article, and a website for a company that produces Common Core curriculum for purchase.  The Delicious results have four listings that are basically all from the Common Core website itself.  Some reference specific parts of the site or pdf files on the parent site.  There is also a blog listing news about resources being developed for the Common Core, a website for a company that specializes in leadership through change, the Lexile website, a site sponsored by the New York State Education Department, and another that is designed especially for New York state teachers.  A final listing is for the Surveys of Enacted Curriculum website through the state of Wisconsin’s education department.    

It seems that the Delicious results might contain more practical, hands-on results that would lead to resources for actually implementing the Common Core State Standards in the classroom.  That is what I would have expected since Delicious results are created by users who care enough about the sites to list them on their own Delicious registry.  I like that I can see how many people have listed a resource previously because it gives me an idea about how relevant that site might be.  Tags are also helpful as a preview of what topics will be addressed on the listed sites.  Neither site provides much information about the dates on which information was posted on the sites in its results other than for news articles in which the publication date usually appears in the Google results.

I think that my use of these two search tools in the future will depend on what I am looking for. If I want to access a specific site but don’t know the URL or just want general information on a topic, Google will probably still be my choice.  If I want to know what teachers are bookmarking on a particular curriculum subject, for example, I would go to Delicious.  Delicious seems to me to be a kind of review service for websites.  I wouldn’t necessarily assume that a posting on Delicious is an endorsement of a site, but it would indicate to me that someone thought the site was worthy of a look.