Date: | Fri, 3 Nov 2000 20:24:45 -0600 |
Subject: | SE Report #48, Part 2 of 2 |
To: | "search-engine-report-text" <search-engine-report-text@list5.internet.com> |
From: | "jmedley" <jmedley@internet.com> | Block address |
Reply-to: | "search-engine-report-text" <search-engine-report-text@list5.internet.com> |
|
|
THE SEARCH ENGINE REPORT
November 3, 2000 - Number 48 - Part 2 of 2
By Danny Sullivan
Editor, Search Engine Watch
http://searchenginewatch.com/
Copyright (c) 2000 internet.com corporation
_________________________Sponsors__________________________
This newsletter sponsored by: Search Engine Strategies,
ClickZ and Cayenta
___________________________________________________________
===================
About The Report
===================
The Search Engine Report is a monthly newsletter that covers
developments
with search engines and changes to the Search Engine Watch web site,
http://searchenginewatch.com/.
The report has 153,000 subscribers. You may pass this newsletter on to
others, as long either part is sent in its entirety.
Did you know that there's a longer, more in-depth version of this
newsletter? The twice-monthly "Search Engine Update" newsletter is
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subscribers." Learn more about the advantages
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http://searchenginewatch.com/about/subscribe.html?source=ser0011
Please note that long URLs may break into two lines in some mail
readers.
Cut and paste, should this occur.
===================
In Part 2
+ MSN Search Releases New Version
+ Google & FAST Move Up In Size
+ New Go Site Goes Up
+ Google Gets Paid Links, Quotes and More Languages
-- (full story online, summary and link provided)
+ GoTo Live At AOL, Enters The UK, To Appear At Lycos & HotBot
-- (full story online, summary and link provided)
+ Lookin' For Liv In All The Wrong Places
+ Yahoo Publishes Top Searches
+ New Search Engine Sites & Resources
+ Interesting Search Engine Articles
+ List Info (Subscribing/Unsubscribing)
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====================
MSN Search Releases New Version
MSN Search went live with a new version of its site about a week ago.
There
have been a variety of minor tweaks and design changes, as well as some
substantial changes.
Most important are the new "Popular Search Topics" links that now
appear
below the search box, after you perform a search. These are suggestions
designed to help you easily narrow your request to a particular topic,
if
your original search was ambiguous. For example, in a search for
"saturn,"
you'll see these options:
+ Saturn Corporation (auto manufacturer)
+ Saturn (planet)
+ Sega Saturn cheats (game hints)
Select a topic, and the search engine will rerun your request focused
around that particular topic. However, the real beauty to these is that
you're not simply giving the search engine new words to search for,
such as
"planet saturn," if you were to choose the planet-oriented topic. While
those words will appear in the search box, behind the scenes they are
mapped to other words that editors at MSN Search believe will bring up
the
best sites for that topic. Moreover, the editors may have preselected
what
they believe to be the best sites for that particular query.
That's just one example of the hard work going on at MSN Search to
improve
the quality of their results. A team of editors closely monitors search
logs and provides human intervention where needed to improve the
listings.
Misspellings are a good example. Consider:
britney spears
britney speers
britiney spears
The top spelling is correct, but the two other spellings have been
programmed to also bring up results similar to the correct spelling,
thus
saving thousands of teenage pop fans from the heartache of missing web
sites about singer Britney Spears (and who knew there was a Society of
Future Husbands of Britney Spears!).
Returning to the Popular Search Topics feature, if there are more than
four
topics for a particular search, you'll also see a "Show All" link next
to
the words "Popular Search Topics." Select this link, and you'll be
shown
all the different topics related to your original search.
After doing a search, you'll see that the results screen has gained
some
new tabs at the top of the page. The "News Search" tab runs your query
against content from MSNBC. "eShop Search" runs a search against
listing at
the MSN eShop shopping site. "Yellow Pages" brings back geographical
business listings from the MSN Yellow Pages site.
The feature that allowed those using Internet Explorer to save results
has
now been removed. I always thought this was pretty cool, but users
generally didn't take advantage of it. Given this, it was dropped to
make
the results page less cluttered. Similarly, MSN Search has added more
white
space to make the results visually appealing.
"We put white space to let page breathe," said Philip Carmichael, group
program manager for MSN Search. "The results were definitely running
together."
MSN Search
http://search.msn.com/
====================
Google & FAST Move Up In Size
Google announced last week that its size has increased to 602 million
pages
that have been fully-indexed and to 1.25 million pages when partially
indexed material is included. The announcement came just about week
after
FAST Search had gained the title of biggest search engine by increasing
its
index to 575 million pages. Now Google regains the size crown, but more
maneuvering is likely in the coming months. In third place, Inktomi
remains
at the 500 million mark. Partners accessing full Inktomi information
include iWon, HotBot and NBCi, Inktomi says. WebTop.com also claims 500
million pages. All numbers are self-reported.
Google
http://www.google.com/
FAST
http://www.alltheweb.com/
PepeSearch
http://www.pepesearch.com/
New FAST-powered search site.
Search Engine Sizes
http://searchenginewatch.com/reports/sizes.html
Links to past articles about search engine size issues and
announcements. I
haven't updated the charts yet, but that should happen by Monday, if
not
sooner (promise!).
====================
New Go Site Goes Up
Having given up its goal of being a portal to please all people, the
new Go
site was formally unveiled last month. While you may have heard talk
about
the site being transformed into a starting point for those seeking
"freetime" information such as entertainment, leisure and lifestyle
content, so far it instead retains features that may appeal to general
searchers.
Specialized freetime information may come in the future, but for now,
even
Go admits that the big push is to emphasize search. "This is a
navigation
site," said Rajiv Samant, executive vice president and general manager
of
Go. "We've really tried to make the search site dominant."
If you haven't been to the Go since its relaunch, the big change is
that
Go's human-compiled directory information is now being given top
billing
over its crawler-based results. That makes sense, given that the Go
crawler
has not remained competitive with other major crawlers in terms of size
and
freshness.
Go says it plans to refresh and expand its crawler results soon, but
even
with an increase from the current 50 million pages to 100 million, you
won't be turning to Go for comprehensive web coverage. Nevertheless,
Go's
directory picks might point you in the right direction for general
queries.
A team of about 43,000 volunteer "Go Guides" compiles the listings,
which
are now said to number over 430,000.
When you perform a search, you'll see any matching categories from this
directory appearing at the top of the results page, under the heading
of
"Go Directory." Category links are not always present, but when they
are,
you can select one and go right into an area where sites on the
category
topic are listed in order of star quality, with three star sites coming
first, two star sites next, then one star sites.
Go will also extract the top sites from the directory that it thinks
match
your query and present these right on the search results page. These
appear
in the "Proven Picks" area, just below the category links "module." Or,
if
there are no category links, then Proven Picks will top the page. After
the
Proven Picks come "Web Search Results," which are any matches that the
Go
crawler has found from across the web.
Finally, another new feature you may come across is a "Focus Your
Search"
page that may show up if you do an ambiguous search. For example, look
for
"tiger," and Focus Your Search will ask if you mean topics such as:
+ Music artists & bands
+ Detroit Tigers
+ Woods, Tiger
+ Tigers Computer
When you choose a topic, Go reruns your search to bring back results
relevant to that area. It will go beyond the actual search words that
are
displayed, also. For example, select the Tiger Woods topic, and it will
bring up directory picks and web pages relevant to Tiger Woods, even
though
the search query will remain "tiger." Behind the scenes, Go will look
at
the directory listings relevant to Tiger Woods and use these, as well
as
some editor adjustments, to bring back relevant results.
Go
http://www.go.com/
====================
Google Gets Paid Links, Quotes and More Languages
Google has debuted a new self-serve paid links program, while also
adding
more language search support and a feature that allows you to locate
stock
quotes. A full article about the changes can be found via the link
below:
Google Gets Paid Links, Quotes and More Languages
SearchEngineWatch.com, Oct. 16, 2000
http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/00/10-google.html
====================
GoTo Live At AOL, Enters The UK, To Appear At Lycos & HotBot
It's been a busy month for GoTo, with its AOL partnership now live, new
in-roads to bring its listings to the United Kingdom, and a deal to
provide
paid links to Lycos and HotBot just approved. A full article about the
changes can be found via the link below:
GoTo Live At AOL, Enters The UK, To Appear At Lycos & HotBot
The Search Engine Report, Nov. 3 2000
http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/00/11-goto.html
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====================
Lookin' For Liv In All The Wrong Places
One of the great things about Google is that it has really stood apart
from
other crawler-based search engines in fending off spam. Its heavy
reliance
on link analysis, among other factors, has made life difficult for
those
seeking to manipulate Google's results. However, a recent story about
how a
porn site achieved some top rankings has shown that even Google is
vulnerable to spam, though the black eye it has received is more than
it
deserves.
The porn site created doorway pages for different celebrities such as
Phoebe Cates and Liv Tyler, which were discovered to appear top ranked
for
corresponding searches such as "Phoebe Cates nude" and "Liv Tyler
nude."
The success of these pages was described in an article from GeekPress,
then
commented upon within Slashdot, which led to a follow up article in
GeekPress. The issue was whether or not Google was "fooled," as
GeekPress
puts it, into returning these pages as relevant.
Yeah, Google was fooled. While a message forwarded to Slashdot from
Google
suggested that there were no relevant results for something like "Liv
Tyler
nude," I think its obvious that Google has set its standards high
enough
that giving top billing to fake discussion pages isn't what it
considers
optimal performance. Moreover, GeekPress makes an excellent argument
that
there are indeed relevant sites for Liv Tyler nude out on the web
(sorry,
Liv).
Is this a big deal? Nah. I'd be much more concerned if porn sites were
coming up for searches on "Liv Tyler" alone, rather than her name plus
"nude."
Google's not perfect, and I'm sure we'll continue to see little things
like
this crop up. However, such flaws seem much worse than they are
primarily
because Google has set the bar so high in the relevancy game. For the
most
part, it continues to dazzle people with its amazing high jumps, and a
slight stumble now and then shouldn't be confused with a broken leg.
Whew
-- I think I winded myself pushing that metaphor too far :)
Scamming Google
GeekPress, Oct. 30, 2000
http://www.geekpress.com/stories/google.shtml
The original story about the high-ranking porn pages at Google.
Reports Of Google's Demise Exaggerated
Slashdot, Oct. 31, 2000
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/10/31/0659230
Discussion thread contains comments from Google and lots of defense of
the
search engine.
Still Scamming Google
GeekPress, Oct. 31, 2000
http://www.geekpress.com/stories/google2.shtml
Written in response to criticism at Slashdot and to disprove comments
from
Google, this article goes into detail that there are indeed relevant
sites
for "Liv Tyler nude," including even some non-porn sites.
Did Smut Spammers Scam Google?
Wired News, Nov. 1, 2000
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,39896,00.html
Wired nicely wraps up the entire issue.
More Evil Than Dr. Evil?
The Search Engine Report, Nov. 1, 1999
http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/99/11-google.html
Perhaps Google-blips are an annual thing, because a year ago, the
now-notorious "more evil than satan" query eclipsed sex as a top search
on
Google. Why? The top result returned was Microsoft, and everyone had to
try
it for themselves. Want to bet "Liv Tyler nude" is rising in the
rankings
right now at Google?
====================
Yahoo Publishes Top Searches
It used to be that every so often, a Yahoo top searches list would be
leaked and circulated around. Now Yahoo's made the wise move of
realizing
what we search for is great content. The Yahoo Buzz Index provides a
breakdown of top search topics by category and overall.
"Leaders" shows you what's hot -- for example, Halloween and the
Singapore
Airlines crash currently top the overall list. "Movers" shows you what
topics are gaining interest from the previous day. Actress Tara Reid is
currently second on the movers list, probably due to her engagement,
which
came to light this week. You'll find Buzz archives stretching back to
Sept.
26 of this year.
Meanwhile, a similar feature that was launched earlier this year by
AltaVista, the A-List, has been discontinued as part of September's
budget
cutting over there. However, the oldest of the search analysis
services,
the Lycos 50, continues on strong.
Yahoo Buzz Index
http://buzz.yahoo.com/
AltaVista A-List
http://trends.altavista.com/
You can still read the last edition here.
Lycos 50
http://50.lycos.com/
What People Search For
http://searchenginewatch.com/facts/searches.html
Other places where you can see how people are searching for things
online.
==========================
Search Engine Resources
==========================
All Academic
http://www.allacademic.com/
Designed to direct you to academic papers and information across the
web.
====================
Healthwide.com
http://www.healthwide.com/
New health portal, with a special web-wide search engine powered by
Google
that provide results specifically from health and medical-related web
sites.
====================
Vivisimo
http://vivisimo.com/
Enter a search term, select a search engine, then watch as Vivismo
automatically organizes pages from the results into categories. Slick
and
easy to use. Fans of Northern Light's Custom Search Folders will love
this
ability to give other major search engines a similar feature.
====================
FindSame
http://www.findsame.com/
FindSame finds sentences, paragraphs, or documents that have been
duplicated on the web. Just feed it a URL or a block of text, and it
will
scan against its index of 200 million URL to look for matches. It's a
great
way to see if someone is stealing your content, or just to find
documents
that may be similar to one you like.
====================
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http://dss.clip2.com/reflector.htm
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==========================
Search Engine Articles
==========================
Search Us, Says Google
MIT Technology Review, Nov/Dec. 2000
http://www.techreview.com/articles/nov00/qa.htm
Good Q&A with the founders of Google.
====================
Online Policy Group Web Site Listed in Major Search Engines
Online Policy Group, Nov. 2, 2000
http://www.onlinepolicy.org/research/searchengines/opglisted.htm
Looks at getting a new site listed for free. Major conclusions? Expect
a
month or two delay, and getting into the Open Directory can help you in
a
wide-variety of other places.
====================
Choose Your Words With Care
ClickZ, Nov. 1, 2000
http://www.clickz.com/cgi-bin/gt/article.html?article=2720
Tips on selecting search terms for search engine optimization efforts.
====================
China Net Users Seek Better Search Engines
China Online, Oct. 16, 2000
http://www.insidechina.com/localpress/chonline.php3?id=209683
Covers search satisfaction, or dissatisfaction, in China -- as well as
top
Chinese search engines.
====================
Deja News Search Engine for Sale: News and Irresponsible Speculation
ResearchBuzz, Oct. 17, 2000
http://www.researchbuzz.com/articles/dejasale.html
ResearchBuzz's Tara Calishain takes an interesting stab at where she
thinks
the Deja newsgroup archives might fit (see next article, below)
====================
Deja Puts Sale Up For Discussion
ZDNet, Oct. 15, 2000
http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2640446,00.html
In the latest in the Deja's newsgroup search saga, the archives and the
associated online reading service are to be sold.
====================
Building an Effective Linking Strategy
ClickZ, Oct. 12, 2000
http://www.clickz.com/cgi-bin/gt/article.html?article=2589
Eric Ward is a widely acknowledged master of generating traffic to a
web
site through online PR and link building. In this article, he
introduces
you to link building concepts. In the one below, he provides further
tips.
Link Popularity Is Not Your Only Linking Goal
ClickZ, Oct 26, 2000
http://clickz.com/cgi-bin/gt/article.html?article=2678
====================
Are portals passe
MSNBC, Oct. 3, 2000
http://www.msnbc.com/news/468936.asp
Nice piece on the rise and fall of being a portal.
====================
Stanford Launches Better Search Engine Project
siliconvalley.internet.com, Oct. 2, 2000
http://siliconvalley.internet.com/news/article/1,2198,3531_474121,00.html
Yahoo, Excite and Google all came out of Stanford University. Will
Global
InfoBase be next?
====================
Dogpile, The Speaker of the House, and A Little Test
Search Engine Guide, Sept. 18, 2000
http://www.searchengineguide.com/articles/20000918_01.html
Turns out that an aide to the Speaker of the US House of
Representatives is
a fan of the Dogpile metasearch engine.
====================
Next-Generation Web Search
IEEE Data Engineering Bulletin, Sept. 2000
http://www.research.microsoft.com/research/db/debull/A00sept/issue.htm
In this special edition, six technical papers that deal with web
searching
are presented. They include topics such as link analysis, computing
page
reputations, creating topic specific search engines and the role a
search
engine's interface plays in the success of a searcher. Papers are
presented
in PostScript. To read them, try the GhostScript viewer,
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/gsview/get34.html.
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