ortals beware. Customer satisfaction with most major search engines and portals is declining. Yahoo's satisfaction index took the biggest plunge, according to a recent study by American Customer Satisfaction Index (www.theacsi.org).

Even Google, which rated highest among the major portals, is slightly down compared to last year's ratings. On a 100-point scale, Google, the highest scorer, dropped 1.2 per cent from 82 to 81 points; Yahoo's rating declined four per cent from a score of 80 to 76 points; MSN was off one per cent, dropping for a score of 74 from 75; and Ask.com, which had the lowest rating, dropped one per cent from 72 to 71 points. AOL is the only listed portal or search engine that moved up, from 71 to 74 points, a three per cent jump.... more