Still searching

Well-intentioned people at the BBC are still trying to build a better search engine.  The latest effort is explained on the BBC Internet blog by Matthew McDonnell,  as part of a continuing drive to "deliver a single, unified and consistent discovery experience for the BBC".     ("Deliver" is the BBC buzz word of 2010 - retired sages note its use, poorly, once in Mark Thompson's Christmas message to staff, and three times in an e-billet-doux from Helen Boaden)  

This [search engine development], for me, is the sort of thing Mark Thompson should stop, if the BBC is serious about cutting 25% of online spending, and committing to fewer landmark sites. Reasons ?  One: There are some good, proprietary brands out there. Anyone heard of Google, Yahoo !, Bing, Ask etc ?   Two: a little or no cost, you can embed a proprietary engine within your site. Three: the results of specifically designed BBC search engines are aimed at keeping you within "BBC content", and that's not a good thing these days.    

So let's see the costs of the development team so far (right back to the beginning) and the hits that come from use of a BBC search box compared to those that come via by Google et al.