Search engine Gigablast gets a face lift

Rumor has it that Ask.com may abandon its own search engine technology in favor of Google. That would be a shame, as Google need all the competition it can get. If anything comes out of the Microsoft/Yahoo! merger we will end up with only two major search engine technologies.

There are others out there, though. Gigablast was relaunched in beta this week with a new and more contemporary design. One feature you should take a look at is its Freshness Dating, which lets you limit results to new sites in a simple way.

Gigablast’s boast about being more eco-friendly than Google does not make much sense to us, however. If Gigablast had the traffic of Google, they would also need many more energy hungry servers.

Another contender for the “serious alternative search engine field” — i.e. high quality search engines that have their own databases and their own algorithm — is French Exalead. Many librarians love that site due to its strong support of advanced Boolean searching.

Here are some of the search engine news stories we found interesting this week:

Google Webmaster Tools: Now On Your iGoogle Homepage

You can add the Webmaster Tools gadget to your iGoogle page and access information from there (SE Land Feb 28 2008)

The Google Killer - comScore (SCOR) Doomsday Scenario

QSearch showed a 7 percent decline in January ‘08 vs. December ‘07. Paid click annual growth? Flat for Google. (Search Engine Watch Feb 29 2008)

Yahoo! sued again over actions in China

A group of Chinese activists have launched a new lawsuit against the firm, claiming they were harmed as a result of Yahoo!’s cooperation with the country’s government. (BigMouthMedia Feb 28 2008)

Yahoo opens up its search results

Yahoo is launching a new program that will allow website owners to build plug-ins for Yahoo Search that will enhance their listings in the search results pages. (Browsermedia Feb 28 2008)

Ten Ways To Keep Your Search History Private

Events such as AOL’s release of private search records have prompted many search engine users to be a bit more cautious with their searching habits. (About.com March 1 2008)

A Chat with Hakia’s CEO Dr. Riza C. Berkan

After a decade long career in the nuclear field working on projects ranging from nuclear safety to control & diagnostics, Dr. Berkan founded hakia.com, a first-of-its-kind semantic search engine. (Alt Search Engines Feb 29 2008)

Gigablast Relaunches With New Features

You can enter a date span and Gigablast will search only for pages generated or last updated in that date span (ResearchBuzz Feb 25 2008)

4,000 search engines you’ve never heard of…

Phil Bradley on country specific search engines (Alt Search Engines Feb 28 2008)

Opera Mobile and Opera Mini to use Google as default search engine

This means that Google has managed to snatch away a deal from Yahoo which was previously the default search engine on these two mobile applications. (Wireless News March 1 2008)

Rumor: Microsoft about to unveil web-apps strategy

I’ve heard that Microsoft has begun briefing its large enterprise clients on an expansive and detailed strategy for moving its software business into the cloud. (Rough Type March 1 2008)

Will Ask Switch To Google And Lay Off A 100?

Rumors are rife that Ask could be considering handing over its search operations to Google and consequently downsizing it’s engineering team (PageTraffic March 1 2008)

Pandia this week

Google adds free online eroom collaboration tool

Web inSuggest - new recommendation service for finding relevant web sites

Spokeo, the Big Brother of social networking

Playaudiovideo indexes movies, music and images