SurfCanyon is a Firefox plug-in that claims mind reading capabilities. Even though there’s no actual magic involved, this nifty little app does a great job of digging though the search results for the hits you need, even though Google buried them on page 12.

SurfCanyon accelerates the search process by re-ranking the search results based on your behaviour. This way, the browser extension applies a layer of real-time implicit personalization. The software is transforming static lists of links into dynamic search results pages that work with the you as you explore the search results.

How does it work?

Once the plug-in is installed, you go to one of the three search engines supported (Google, Yahoo! and MSN) and enter your search term as usual. In the search results, you’ll notice the difference: A little bulls eye icon appears next to each search result. If one strikes you as particularly useful, click the bulls eye and SurfCanyon suggests more hits like it, retrieved from deep within the search results.

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Recent search engine news stories Pandia has found interesting.

• Microsoft directors consider increasing bid for Yahoo

  Microsoft Corp.’s directors met yesterday to consider raising the software maker’s $41.9 billion bid for Yahoo Inc. instead of pursuing a hostile takeover attempt, according to a published report. (May 1 2008)

• Microsoft weighs options on Yahoo

  Microsoft has yet to decide if it will up its $41.8bn (£21bn) bid for Yahoo, go hostile or walk away from the deal. (BBC May 1 2008)

• How-to track Google using Twitter

  I set up a couple Twitter accounts that automatically send tweets that include Google focused news items, blog posts, bookmarks, and even Digg items that just hit the frontpage! (Google Tutor April 28 2008)

• Audiobaba Music Search

  Audiobaba Music Search is a next generation music search engine that allows you to find songs by acoustic similarity. (Phil Bradley April 29 2008)

• An Interview with Exalead’s François Bourdoncle

  On the connection between AltaVista and French Exalead and much more (AltSearchEngines April 29 2008)

• Yahoo Integrating Facebook Style Social Map & Unified Profile Pages Across Network

  Yahoo is finally taking the social route in fully connecting its Yahoo Network users across multiple Yahoo platforms in a Facebook meets Yahoo type setting, where users will be able to view the doings of their friends over a central Yahoo social map. (SE

• Yahoo! Launches SearchMonkey!

  This open source tool known as SearchMonkey will give the publishers the possibility of enhancing their search results on Yahoo! through the inclusion of links, images and name-value pairs in the search results. (PageTraffic April 25 2008)

• Yahoo Starts SearchMonkey Rollout

  Back in February, Yahoo announced SearchMonkey, a project that would allow site owners and developers to customize their search engine listings’ appearance and information. (SE Land April 25 2008)

• Google’s Vision of the Future of Image Search

  Can Google’s technology automatically analyze what’s inside an image? (SE Journal April 28 2008)

• Social Media Marketing Beginner’s Guide

  What is the hottest social media tool to emerge on the scene this year? It’s ‘Twitter’, and you may get hooked too… (April 28 2008)

• How to Analyze Page Keyword Prominence

  While keyword density is really something SEOs should really stop paying attention to, keyword prominence is a concept that still should be analyzed and evaluated. (SE Journal April 29 2008)

• Google unveils new prototype image search system “VisualRank”

  VisualRank works using image recognition software, which groups images together that seem most similar to each other. (Dave Naylor April 29 2008)

• Wikipedia is Still Useful for SEO

  Wikipedia is believed to be the most heavily scraped site in the history of the Internet. Bigoak explains why a Wikipedia link may help you (April 29 2008)

• Google Toolbar PageRank Update Creates Major Webmaster Buzz

  Usually PageRank updates aren’t that noteworthy, but it seems something is different about this PageRank update, Barry Scwartz says (SE Land April 30 2008)

• Google Analytics for Bloggers - Google Relaunches Measure Map

  Email invitations went out this week to alpha users of the blog tracking software. (Search Engine Watch April 30 2008)

• Microsoft’s $1.5 Billion Plan to Retain Yahoo Employees

  Search Engine Watch quotes the Wall Street Journal (April 30 2008)

• Google Ocean?

  Google is planning to map not only the sky and land masses (Google Mars, Moon, Earth, Google Maps and so on), but – according to a report by News.com – also aims to map the oceans. (Google Blogoscoped April 30 2008)

• Artist Themes for iGoogle

  Google in the US is currently promoting a new “artist themes” section for iGoogle via a special logo and text below the search box. (Google Blogoscoped April 30 2008)

• Search Conference Controversy Sparks Up Again

  Kevin Ryan of Search Engine Strategies spoke with Daron Babin and discussed the current state of the conference circuit with regards to individuals believing that they have been banned from either SMX or SES events. (SE Roundtable April 30 2008)

• Microsoft Live Search Adds More Images, Multimap, Find My Location, & Celebrity Rank

  The enhancements include an expanded image search index, a new integrated mapping experience with Multimap, a location based mobile search feature to “find me,” and more content for the celebrities and books sections. (SE Land April 30 2008)

• How to Use Headline Tags To Boost Page Performance

  Aside from the title tag, which isn’t really a part of the visual page, the heading tags can provide both visitors and the search engines significant cues to the importance of your on-page content. (SE Guide April 30 2008)

According to Associated Press Microsoft’s directors yesterday considered upping their bid for Yahoo! According to the Wall Street Journal they did not make a final decision.

Microsoft has two other alternatives: (1) To give up acquiring Yahoo! (it is just too expensive) or (2) withdraw the bid, wait for the stock price to fall and go for a hostile bid.

Microsoft had given Yahoo! until 26 April to accept its US$41.8bn bid, which Yahoo has said is inadequate.

According to the BBC Microsoft may up its bid from $31 to $33 per share, but Yahoo shareholders are hoping for $35 to $37 per share.

Microsoft desperately needs Yahoo!s web content and search engine to meet the threat from Google, as its own web adventures have been halfhearted at best.

Our guess? Microsoft will get what it wants, simply because the Yahoo! leadership has been unable to develop a viable alternative. A merger with AOL — which has been proposed — makes no sense to us, as AOL is nothing but a weak and less innovative copy of Yahoo!

Microsoft will at least give Yahoo! a strong financial clout.

See also: Microsoft Says They’ll Pay More for Yahoo (Seeking Alpha April 30 2008)

Google is planning an oceanographic parallel to Google Earth and Google Sky, giving users access to maps over the ocean floor.

According to CNet Google has established an advisory group of oceanography experts to help them develop the new product.

In December the company invited researchers from institutions around the world to the Googleplex in California to discuss the creation of a 3D oceanographic map.

Not all of the ocean floor has been mapped in detail, and Google’s project may speed up the process of us getting to know the deep.

Google Earth is a free PC program that lets you fly anywhere on Earth to view satellite imagery, maps, terrain, 3D buildings and even explore galaxies in the Sky. You can explore geographical content, save your toured places and share with others.

Google Ocean is expected to work in much the same way.

Recently, Pandia reviewed Kosmix, a web portal and clustering engine rolled into one. We liked what we saw, so we talked to Venky Harinarayan, co-founder of Kosmix to find out more about how they see themselves in the search engine food chain.

Pandia: Kosmix generates “home pages” for themes or queries. This seems like a difficult job for a search engine spider. I’m guessing some semantic analysis is involved? Are there any human editors as well?

Venky Harinarayan: Humans are involved not as editors for individual topics, but to help set up the taxonomy i.e. the categories and how they relate to one another.

At the core of our technology is a sophisticated algorithm-based categorization engine. Our technology combs through billions of Web pages and structured data points to aggregate, categorize and return the most targeted content to users, all of which is done algorithmically.

The difference is in the taxonomy

Pandia: The Kosmix result pages have the feel of directory pages but are in reality an alternative way to present universal search results (result pages that mixes different types of search results, like Google Universal Search).

How does Kosmix stand apart from Google Universal Search, Ask’s 3rd column etc.?

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Alltop SEO is an all-in-one page where you easily browse through the latest news from all the best SEO blogs. It’s a surefire way to tap into the SEO hive mind.

Alltop SEO contains the five freshest stories from some 50 popular SEO blogs, all on one information packed site (Pandia is there too ). And it’s always up to date, so this is a great place to go to feel the buzz of the SEO community.

I can imagine it would work nicely as a start page for SEO research: Browse the headlines, get excerpts by pointing your mouse to the individual entries and open your favorite blogs or stories that interest you in new tabs.

A digital magazine rack

SEO Alltop is one of a myriad of similar collections. Alltop is owned by a company called Nononina, who’s CEO is entrepreneur and venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki.

Guy Kawasaki tells Pandia that: “Alltop is collection of “single-page aggregations” organized by topics such as Fashion, Celebrities, Sports, Gaming, Macintosh, Science, Green, and Autos. People can find news from dozens of sites, side-by-side, at a glance. We think of it as a “digital magazine rack”.

At Alltop, you can browse an entire directory of these aggregations in categories like work, living, culture, geekery (our favorite), people, news and more.

Are you looking for a specialized search engine to research a particular topic? Do you spend a lot of time doing research online or do you simply want to know more of the hundreds upon hundreds of search engines out there.

We present the three best sites for researching search engines or finding that one search engine that delivers exactly what you need.

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Omgili is a search engine that indexes web-based discussion boards to see if your question might already be answered somewhere on the web.

Since we reviewed Omgili back in 2006 it has kept evolving and now spiders Digg, MySpace and other social media sites for answers.

I talked to Ran Geva, CEO at Omgili, to find out what’s new.

Pandia: It has been a while since we reviewed Omgili. How has your product evolved since then?

Ran Geva: Omgili has changed a lot, both on the surface and behind the scenes. Here are some of our new features:

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