Pandia Search Engine Weblog 2002 Part 1

(Feb 25 2002) The new Lycos InSite paid inclusion program secures sites a fast refresh rate and adds some interesting new services.

Pandia has discussed the new program with Lycos and Fast.

AltaVista discontinues free email

(Feb 21 2002) In an email sent to AltaVista email users AltaVista states that the company has rededicated AltaVista.com to its original mission: "providing Internet users with the world's most comprehensive search engine and delivering relevant results, fast."

In keeping with this mission, AltaVista Company is discontinuing its free Web-based consumer email service. Effective March 31, 2002, all 400,000 free AltaVista email accounts will be closed.

Google adds pay-per-click AdWords

(Feb 20 2002) Google has launched a new pay-per-click text ad program.

Pandia has more on Google AdWords and this new challenge to Overture and other pay for placement search engines.

iLor leaves Google for Teoma

(Feb 19 2002) Searchday reports that the search site iLor has started using results from Ask Jeeves' Direct Hit popularity based search engine instead of Google. iLor will, however, switch to Ask Jeeves' Google-like Teoma search engine as soon as possible.

iLor has been known for providing a more advanced interface to Google results.

ixquick adds keyword linked ad system

(Feb 19 2002) The highly acclaimed metasearch engine ixquick has added a new ad program called Spotlight to its services. The ads are combinations of text and small graphics, and are linked to the search query of the searcher. Up to 6 ads may appear per search term. If a term is embedded within a larger search term, and fewer than six have been rented, the ad may also appear.

The price varies according to keyword popularity. The most expensive ones cost US$ 500 per year, while the cheapest category is at US$ 25. You can change the text and graphics of your ads throughout the whole year.

Ask Jeeves UK includes Espotting ads

(Feb 19 2002) European pay-per-click search engine Espotting will continue to provide pay for performance results to the British version of Ask Jeeves.

The Espotting listings will from now on be the first results to be featured in the section "Pick a website from the list below". Previously, Espotting results were featured in the metasearch section at the bottom of the Ask Jeeves results page. There will continue to be Espotting results in this section as well, however.

Ask Jeeves and Teoma add paid inclusion

(Feb 16 2002) As our regular readers will know, Ask Jeeves has bought and started using the Google-like search engine Teoma for powering regular Ask Jeeves search results.

They now offer a paid inclusion program. Your site wil be refreshed every 7 days, which is far too infrequent in our opinion, 48 hours should be a minimum. On the other hand your pages will stay in the database for 15 months. The first URL will cost you 30 US$, the next US$ 18 each.

Is it worth it? Probably not. Ask Jeeves does not genereate the kind of traffic you expect from for instance Yahoo! or Google. Moreover, if Teoma starts dropping sites that our not paying, the quality of search results will soon deteriorate. We suggest you try to get listed in the Teoma database for free. The best way of doing that is to get listed in the Open Directory.

Turbo10 crawls the hidden Web

(Feb 14 2002) The British metasearch engine Turbo10 has added several online databases to its search results.

Pandia has more on this and other Turbo10 features like topic clustering and the "Search-O-Meter".

Lycos' Fast Forward

(Feb 13 2002) Lycos.comhas added a new feature to its search engine called Fast Forward.

There is a Fast Forward link after each search result. When you click on it the screen will be split in two, with a search pane to the left and a browser window to the right. The site you have selected will be opened in the right hand browser window, while the Lycos search result list will appear in the left hand search pane. You may use the list to the left to jump from result to result.

This is actually not a bad idea, as you will be spared from using the back button or from cluttering your screen estate with too many windows.

The feature requires that Javascript is turned on (it normally is). It will not work in the Opera browser.

Overture's new deal with MSN

(Feb 12 2002) Pay-per-click search engine Overture has signed an agreement to provide paid search results/text ads to MSN -- at least through 2003.

Under the agreement, MSN's search results pages will feature Overture's top three listings under the heading "Sponsored Sites." The agreement builds upon an existing relationship between Overture and MSN, under which Overture provides its search results to users of MSN Search from the Microsoft Internet Explorer search pane.

Google to change AdWords program?

(Feb 12 2002) An unconfirmed rumor has it that Google will change its AdWords program. AdWords are the text ads you find in the left hand column of Google search results.

Their relative position is now based on click-through popularity. In the future the top placement may apparently go to advertisers willing to pay an extra pay-per-click premium. This change will not affect the regular search listings.

Webmaster World has more.

The Google black box

(Feb 12 2002) Well, its yellow, really, the new "search appliance" offered by Google. The box integrates hardware and software to create a plug-and-play solution that can be used by companies to power searching of Intranets.

It includes automated adjustment of relevancy ranking and spell checking, and tracks and analyzes URLs to provide information about the network. It searches Microsoft Office documents, PDF, PostScript, and other file types, and uses Google's document ranking system for results.

AltaVista adds shortcuts

(Feb 11 2002, update Feb 12) AltaVista now includes so-called "shortcuts" to some of its results, i.e. special listings that take you to selected resources in areas like the weather, recipies, directions, shopping and more.

Pandia has more on this new search engine feature.

Pandia tests kids search engine portal

(Feb 10 2002) Pandia is beta testing its new search engine portal for kids and teenagers. You can take a sneak peek at a preliminary version of Pandia Kids and Teens right now!

Please note: The links on archived search engine news pages will not be updated!

Search Engine News Weblog Archive February 2002

The new Lycos InSite paid inclusion program