Way back in 1999, one of the first famous Google blips came up. A search for more evil than satan found Microsoft's home page as number one in Google. My past article,
More Evil Than Dr. Evil, looks at the situation more.
That's no longer the case on Google -- but something similar has happened on the new MSN Search site. In
fair turnabout, a search for more evil than satan there find Google as number one.
Thanks for the tip via Kevin Fox.
For the record, more evil at satan at Yahoo doesn't bring up either Microsoft or
Google. Articles listed do declare that Microsoft has purchased evil from Satan, however -- and that PowerPoint Is Evil.
Google Signs Lease for Seattle Area Software Development Office
The King County Journal has info about Google's new Seattle area software development office in the article: Google plans to develop new software in Kirkland. It's a 5.6 mile drive from MS HQ. (-:
Google Inc., operator of the world's most widely used Internet search engine, plans to open a software development office here that will eventually employ up to 200 workers.
The Silicon Valley company recently signed a multiyear lease to initially occupy the entire fourth floor of the Central Way Plaza building at 720 Fourth Ave. in downtown Kirkland.
Google also agreed to take an option to occupy the third floor of the building as well by the end of November 2006, which would give the company a total of 46,000 square feet of office space.
David Whelan at Forbes has put together a handy chart that does a nice job expaining the Invisible Web. It's based on the book that Chris and I wrote more three years ago.
After a presentation about shortly after the book was published, an audience member came up to me and said that we didn't include a mention about a specific portion of the Invisible Web.
I thought to myself and wondered what we forgot to mention.
She explained that for many searchers EVEN IF the material has been found and crawled by a general web spider but it's not found in the first few results, its invisible.
I think the comment was right on the money. Placing content in a database is one thing, the ability to FIND it is something else. The fact that:
+ the average query length is about 2.8,
+ most searchers don't use any advanced syntax
+ search skills haven't improved that much in the past few years
+ there is little to no use of controlled vocabulary (to help bring like things together)
+ many searchers only look at the first few results on a serp
and other issues further complicates the situation.
This is another reason why specialized/focused search tools (verticals) can be very useful.
Here's a look at some of the press coverage that the MSN Search beta launch is receiving today.
+ Microsoft Launches Search Beta: Platform Ho!
Source: Searchblog ...perhaps the most important news I gleaned from talking to [Microsoft's Justin] Osmer was this: Microsoft has every intention of opening up its search APIs and allowing third party developers to leverage their search platform for new and innovative applications. This is where the future lies, in my mind, and I find that declaration a refreshing indication of where Microsoft is heading.
+ Microsoft Unveils Its Internet Search Engine, Quietly
Source: New York Times The highest-ranking official who was willing to discuss the rollout was Adam Sohn, director of sales and marketing for the MSN Web portal. He said Microsoft's intention was not to compete with Google, currently the Internet's dominant search engine, but instead to "delight" its own customers...But while dismissing talk of an Internet search war, Mr. Sohn acknowledged that Microsoft hoped its new search abilities might entice Web surfers who do not have what he termed a "religious" commitment to Google.
+ Microsoft gets in on search party
Source: USA Today Forrester analyst Charlene Li says the bottom line on Microsoft's search moves is that the world's biggest software maker is now able to compete with Google and Yahoo. This finally brings Microsoft to the table," she says. "It's like there's this party, and one person has been missing -- Microsoft. Now the party can begin.
+ MSN Search takes on Google and Yahoo!
Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer To get people to switch from Google, (MSN Search) is going to have to deliver noticeably better results right away, and I just think that's hard to do, at least for Web pages," said Matt Rosoff, an analyst with Kirkland-based research firm Directions on Microsoft.
+ Search engine ready to roll
Microsoft to present its new challenge to Yahoo, Google
Source: San Francisco Chronicle Mark Mahaney, an analyst for American Technology Research, said that Microsoft's future in search is helped by its deep pockets and the popularity of its MSN portal, one of the busiest Internet destinations. He added that Microsoft could really gain market share if it eventually incorporated the new search engine into its dominant browser, Internet Explorer. Of course, it's a negative development for Google and Yahoo because you have a major company coming in that has the ability to really promote the hell out of it," Mahaney said
For reasons unbeknownst to me, over the past two years Search Engine Watch has received requests from people in Ghana asking us to send them some of our free watches.
Another one came in today:
l want you to send me a watch and my post address is P.O. BOX...Ghana. THANKS
We have no free watches. I've looked and looked, and I can't figure out why some people in Ghana have this impression. I can only imagine that on some bulletin board
somewhere is our email address with the instructions that if you send us email, we'll send you a free watch.
OK, the site is called "Search Engine Watch" and we mention things like having free newsletters. And ages ago, I tracked down some search spam that seemed to
include us among some other offers about "free engine watches." But there's nothing definitive that I can find to have caused this.
As Chris blogged, Google has raised the stakes in the search engine size wars by claiming an index of 8
billion pages. Microsoft had planned to seize the title of biggest search engine by announcing 5 billion pages indexed today. That would have put it above the 4.2 billion mark
Google has self-reported for about a year.
We've been through these size wars before. They erupt any time a search engine seeks some type of concrete evidence that it is better than another. Size figures don't
"prove" this at all, of course. A search engine with lots of pages might actually be worse than one with fewer, if the index isn't refreshed often or if the relevancy simply
isn't there.
My Search Engine Sizes page lays out the past size wars we've had, for the curious, along with plenty
of reference material and past articles. The figures haven't been updated since Size Wars IV in 2003, so I'll be off to fix that soon. Meanwhile, here's where we stand:
Chris gives you our overview on the new MSN Search technology. Meanwhile, I've been banging away to see how search syntax and other features hold up. Here are some early findings:
+ Microsoft is claiming an index size of greater than 5 billion fully indexed web pages. Google increased their total page count to more than 8 billion pages last night.
+ The new index offers access to many file formats but you're unable to limit to a specific one. (ie. filetype:)
You're also unable to limit by:
Title
URL
Anchor Text
Note to MSN: Please add these.
+ I've tried several searches using the "near me" option and haven't found the results to be very useful.
+ You can refine your image search results directly from the serp and view either color/black & white. You can also refine by image size.
+ You'll notice with MSN's Search Builder that we have another use of "sliders" to modify results. This is what we've seen from Yahoo SmartSort and Kayak.com.
+ Boolean? Yes
Implied And
NOT or -
OR or |
+ The new MSN database doesn't search common stopwords. They are used when searched in a phrase. Compare: A vs. B vs. C
+ You can plug some/any/all of the syntax available via the Search Builder directly into any search box.
Site:
Link:
Loc: (foo)
Example: Loc:au (Australia)
Language: (code)
Example: Language: fr (French)
[mtch=foo}
Larger number (0-100) places more emphasis on the match between your exact search words and your results.
{popl=foo}
Greater number (0-100) means more links to the page.
{frsh=foo}
Greater number (0-100) means more likely updated recently.
+ Phil Bradley mentions that nested searches with parethesis work and the database has a 10 term query limit (same as Google)
+ The "Settings" page offers an option to either increase to 3 or decrease to 1 the number of inline results viewable on a results page.
+ Using define will place a definition from Encarta at the top of the results page along with a link to get a more complete definition.
++ The news release mentions that for some "ready reference" queries (example: What is the capital of Turkey?) an ANSWER will be presented at the top of the results page with material coming from Microsoft's Encarta encyclopedia. Good idea, but not a new one. Ask Jeeves has been offering this with their Smart Answers program for over a year.
+ Since this is a beta release, the flagship site still uses the MSN interface and database that's been online for some time. here.
+ Remember, it's only a beta. Google or Yahoo killer? I agree with Chris, it's not. However, aren't several large web indexes a good thing from the searcher point of view? Do only one or two automobile manufacturers exist? It's wonderful to have another unique web index online. The more the merrier. It will be interesting to see the overlap with Google and Yahoo.
MSN Search Beta Unites New Search Tech With New Features
As rumored, MSN has rereleased its new search engine to the public today. However, the new technology is appearing on the MSN Search Beta
site rather than the flagship MSN Search site for now. Chris Sherman has a full review of what you'll find at the beta site in today's
SearchDay: Microsoft Unveils its New Search Engine - At Last. Some related blog posts to also
consider:
MSN Search Technology To Debut (Again) This Week: Puts past releases from MSN of its new search
technology into perspective with this latest move -- plus goes all the way back to 1998 to track milestones in Microsoft's progress toward owning its own search engine.
Coincidentally, Google's Index Size Jumps: Looks at how Google slips in to steal one of Microsoft's
planned talking points, that of being the "biggest" search engine out there.
On the eve of Microsoft's long anticipated launch of MSN Search, Google is reporting on its home page that its index size has nearly doubled. Google now claims that it is now "Searching 8,058,044,651 web pages." Earlier today, a search for the word "the" returned nearly 11 billion results, a far larger number than officially reported on the home page. No matter which numbers you believe, it's a significant expansion of Google's web database.
Will this big increase in Google's index make a difference to searchers? Perhaps. Traditionally these volleys in the search engine size wars have meant little, but have been picked up by the media because they are tangible and easy to report.
But Google hasn't just increased the size of its index. It has also been working hard on other aspects of the search engine, dropping hints for the past six months of major impending changes in the way the search engine calculates results. Algorithm changes combined with a much larger database may ultimately result in major changes for our web searches.
So yes, this is yet another brilliant PR move by Google that will certainly steal some of Microsoft's thunder on its big announcement day. But it may also portend significant changes in Google search results. Or not. Only time will tell.
In today's Forbes article about search: Calling All Web Search, Arik discusses mobile searching, a topic I've been posting on quite a bit in the past few weeks.
Here's a list of some of the companies featured in the article (with links to SEW mentions):
+ UpSnap
+ Synfonic
+ Smarter.com
You'll also read about the soon to be released, Crunkie (another interesting name, sounds similar to Clusty) from Emeryville-based Wavemarket. "Crunkie that will combine social networking, blogging and tracking friends on wireless phones. Think Friendster meets Blogger meets AOL buddy lists meets mapping--all baked into mobile phones--and you get the idea."
Here's a search tool we haven't heard much from in recent years...
If you're wondering what Business.com has been up to, Susan Kuchinskas at InternetNews.com offers up an interview with Jake Winebaum, CEO of of the company.
Its directory now contains 26 major industry categories and more than 400,000 listings within 25,000 sub-categories. Although the glamour is gone, the site boasts 12 million unique visitors a month and has carved out a niche providing its targeted search to online business publications.
Q: Business.com launched in 2000, but there seemed to be a two-year hiatus between 2002 and 2004. Is that the case?
A: We've been in stealth mode for a while. We learned a lesson: Deeds, not words. We built this thing out, kept it under the radar screen. Now, so much attention is being given to specialized search, we've been raising our hands.
No, Microsoft's Not A Google Killer. Nor A Yahoo Killer
John Battelle has a nice post, Can We Please Bury The Netscape Metaphor, pushing back on the idea that Microsoft
will roll over Google just like it rolled over Netscape.
Yeah, too right it's a bad comparison! I've been saying this for ages, in response to the many press articles that have pursued the metaphor since the search wars heated up
last year.
Since the hype is picking up again as a result of Microsoft's expected new search technology rollout
tomorrow, here's a recap of my past thoughts on the subject:
Some have assumed that back before the Google IPO, Microsoft would bulldoze Google because of its large cash coffers. This neglected the fact that Google had already done
amazing things without needing much cash at all. My article from Nov. 2003, Surprised Google & Microsoft
Talked Takeover? You Shouldn't Be!, looks at this more.
My review in February about a New York Times article on the subject of Google v. Netscape looks
at how the media was painting this picture back then and earlier. It also explains that ultimately, we're not dealing with a software product this time but a media product. It
also notes how there's a third player in this battle, Yahoo, and highlights my network model view of search that I've
discussed since back in 2003:
This isn't Microsoft-Netscape part two. Instead, this is ABC-NBC-CBS-FOX. There's unlikely to be one overall winner, but a particular search network may get a larger share
than others depending on the quality of its programming.
In March, I revisited the issue and highlighted how unlike with the battle against Netscape,
Microsoft didn't buy technology this time to jump start its efforts. Imagine the situation today if it was already using good technology it had purchased from someone like Ask
Jeeves or AllTheWeb.
In April, I pulled everything together in my Search Wars: Battle Of The Search Superpowers article,
looking at the current battle Microsoft is fighting against not just Google and Yahoo.
Microsoft is a serious competitor to both Google and Yahoo, not to mention AOL and Ask Jeeves. But it's not likely to wipe either Google or Yahoo out. It's in for a tough,
long fight with no guarantee of victory.
Dogpile rolled out new "IntelliFind" technology today that focuses on gaining a deeper understanding of user intent at query time and limiting searches to sources that will likely provide the best results for each query. The company also announced partnerships with vertical content providers Topix.net for news, Singingfish for streaming media, as well as deals to include Yahoo!Images and Yahoo! News links in search results.
The company says that the new approach will make searches more responsive, particularly with queries related to current events and popular culture.
In addition to meta search results provided by partners Google, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves and a number of paid placement networks, Dogpile now displays links to news, video and other specialized content when relevant, similar to what Ask Jeeves has been doing with its Smart Search results since early 2003.
