November 14 2000

New European Search Engine Alliances

The dominating search engine companies fasten their grip on the European market. Alta Vista Europe will start using data from the BTLookSmart directory, while the new HotBot Europe search engine will be powered by Inktomi.

The complex world of Web search businesses

It is confusing being a Web searcher. Back in the old days -- a couple of years ago -- a search engine was one search engine. Now Yahoo! gives results from the Google search engine as well as the Yahoo directory, and HotBot provides hits form Inktomi, Direct Hit and the Open Directory -- all at the same time. Hence there is no one to one relationship between the name of the search site and the search engine (i.e. the database) that provides the search results.

This is amply illustrated by the fact that some branches of the same search site may be powered by different search engines and directories. The American version of Lycos is, for instance, powered by Fast's search engine and the Open Directory, while the British one is based on Lycos' own spider and Web directory.

Confused? Sorry, but this is only the beginning.

Terra Lycos, the Spanish company that now owns Lycos, also owns the HotBot search engine, which is powered by Inktomi database, which also powers MSN, AOL and iWon (to name a few).

And some of you may know Inktomi as the search engine that used to provide Yahoo! with additional results before they switched to Google. The circle is completed.

The are several reasons behind this bewildering array of alliances and combinations.

Yahoo needed a search engine that could supply results not found in its own human made directory. On the other hand some of the major machine based search engines wanted to give visitors the benefit of a well structured search directory. Instead of building their own directories, most of them decided to use one that already existed. Alta Vista USA, for instance, used to present data from the Open Directory. It now uses the LookSmart directory.

Why Lycos has decided to keep its old search engine and directory going in Europe? To be honest: We don't know...

HotBot Europe

Most of the large search companies are trying to establish a world wide presence.

Terra Lycos is struggling hard to become the dominant player in Europe. It recently acquired the Spray Network, a leading Scandinavian portal company. Now it is promoting a European version of the HotBot search engine.

As in America HotBot Europe is powered by the Inktomi search engine, and as in America HotBot Europe will compete with Terra Lycos' own Lycos search sites.

Why they are marketing two different search engines at the same time may be difficult to understand. Surely, HotBot and Lycos are competing with each other?

The press release includes the regular corporate blah blah: "HotBot Europe has integrated Inktomi Search/Web into its precision search offering to encourage a more compelling and rich Internet experience for users." Now, what is that supposed to mean, really?

"As the number of experienced European Internet users rises the interest in pure search engines grows," says Marc Stilke, managing director, Search and Content of Lycos Europe. "With the addition of the precision search engine HotBot Europe to our portfolio of Internet services, Lycos Europe is well positioned to provide differentiated search services to our millions of customers throughout Europe. Inktomi's advanced relevancy technology, index scale and customization capabilities are the key reasons why Lycos Europe selected Inktomi to power HotBot Europe."

The key words here are "precision" and "differentiated". It seems that Lycos wants to profile HotBot as the search engine for advanced searchers, while the Lycos' search site will have a broader appeal.

To a certain extent this makes sense. The American version of Lycos is based on Fast technology, which means a huge database, but rather limited support for true advanced searching.

The European version of Lycos, however, which continues to use Lycos' own search technology, allows the use of advanced Boolean searching. Here Lycos continue to be a relevant tool for power searchers that feels the need to build complex queries. American searchers who miss the "old" Lycos should note this, as they can access this database from the British Lycos-site.

Lycos Europe has also incorporated the Inktomi Search/Media service into HotBot Europe, which will enable users to access an extensive database of multimedia files.

The European HotBot site is sharing some of the same design elements as the US version. The main search form is, however, given more space in Europe, and the directory is given less prominence. You can select language, date, file type, number of results and length of description even on the simple search page. The advanced search page includes a wide array of different choices, including page depth, a page link analyzer, various forms of field searching, word stemming, a family filter and more. You may save your advanced settings for future searches. And yes, you may use Boolean operators.

By the way, while American HotBot and Lycos' sites are using the Open Directory for its directory services (as is Pandia Plus), the European HotBot site gives access to the well kept secret called the Lycos directory.

AltaVista Europe and BTLookSmart

At the same time the European branch of the LookSmart directory, BTLookSmart, has agreed a licensing deal for its Web directory service with AltaVista Europe, making BTLookSmart the sole general-purpose Web directory provider for AltaVista in Britain, Germany, France, Sweden, Spain, Italy and The Netherlands.

The agreement follows a similar partnership launched in July between LookSmart and AltaVista in the US, and may be extended to include future AltaVista European launches.

• Inktomi introduces paid submissions (Pandia)
• Lycos Europe Network Selects Inktomi Search Solutions for New HotBot Europe Search Engine Site (press release)
• AltaVista to carry BT directory (from Revolution)
• BTLookSmart and AltaVista (LookSmart press release)
• AltaVista UK
• HotBot Europe
• LookSmart UK
• Lycos UK