More Changes In The World Of Internet Searching

The world of search engines and directories is changing at a rapid pace, one major reason being the fall of the online advertising market. Yahoo!'s stock is in free fall and its CEO has resigned. Although the site is dominating the portal and search site market, it finds it hard to make money from all these visitors. Some observers say that the lack of revenue may be the end of Yahoo!. We do not think so, but we would not be surprised if Yahoo! becomes part of a major merger or takeover.

The Disney company pulled out of the portal/search engine market earlier this month, as it closed its Go portal. This also meant an end to the good old Infoseek search engine and the Go Guides Directory. Yes, there is still a site at go.com, but this is nothing but a one-page gateway to Disney's other sites. The pay-per-click search engine GoTo, Go's old "enemy", now powers the search facility. In 1999 GoTo defeated Go in court, as Go had started using a logo very similar to GoTo's own.

AltaVista has given up its attempt to become a major portal, and is again focusing on what it knows best, that is: searching. It has started using its large 500 million pages database on the regular search site, and added new news and shopping search engines.

There are also a few changes at Pandia:

We have removed the Go/Infoseek and Deja.com (see article below) Q-cards. On the other hand, we have added a new Google card, with search query syntax rules and terms, some of them undocumented at the Google site.

Furthermore, we have redesigned our popular Powersearch all-in-one gateway to search engines and directories. The goal has been to make the resource centre more accessible and easier to navigate.

The Powersearch link collection has been divided into several sections containing specific search resources:

• General search engines and directories
  
• Search engines for FTP, MP3 and images
• Reference resources
• Online Radio Stations
• Discussion groups and Usenet
• Online books
• Business
• Shopping
• Sites for specialized searching
• Search Sites for kids
  

We have also made a new site map that should make it easier to get an overview of the content of our site. You can access this map by clicking on the "Search this Site" link in the left margin of any page. The sitemap page also includes a search form that can be used to search the Pandia site itself.

• GoTo replaces Infoseek.
  
• Q-card:
• Pandia redesigns it all-in-one Powersearch gateway
  

We would like to apologize for the delay of this issue of Pandia Post. It was caused by a ruptured appendix, and we can assure you -- writing newsletters is the last thing on your mind after an operation like that.

At the same time, our server reached its limits, and we had to upgrade our system. We apologize if this has caused you any inconvenience. However, the new system is now up and running.