Pandia Search Engine Weblog April 2003

(April 29 2003) Pubconference is back with a vengeance – this time in Boston Saturday April 26th.

This is the fourth Pubconference organized by WebmasterWorld.com. The format of this year's show was considerably more formal than the previous conferences in London and Irvine.

Read what David Cecil reports from Boston.

Google acquires Applied Semantics

(April 24 2003) Google has acquired Applied Semantics, a producer of software applications for online advertising and domain name and enterprise information management. Google will use this technology for improving its content-targeted AdWords text ad service.

Applied Semantics are the people behind the now defunct Oingo directory. The fact that they are a partner of other pay per click search engines, including FindWhat and Overture, does not hurt. It always makes sense to keep advanced innovations away from competitors.

Moreover, Google will gain a large number of engineers that can contribute to the development of Google's search technology.

Applied Semantics' technology analyzes Web pages in order to find out what they are about. This will make it easier for Google to serve context relevant text ads to normal web pages, i.e. other than search engine results pages. Google is already serving such ads to Web logs and several high traffic sites.

"Applied Semantics is a proven innovator in semantic text processing and online advertising," says Sergey Brin, Google's co-founder and president of Technology. "This acquisition will enable Google to create new technologies that make online advertising more useful to users, publishers, and advertisers alike."

The Applied Semantics team will remain in Santa Monica where Google will establish its Southern California product development center.

Resourceshelf has more. See also Andrew Goodman's article on Will Content Targeting Work This Time Around? It was written before the takeover, but it gives some very interesting insight into why Google feels it needs this technology.

Google press release

The Overture AlltheWeb take over has taken place

(April 22 2003) Overture Services has announced that it has completed the acquisition of the Web search unit of Fast Search & Transfer. The AlltheWeb site has not changed, though -- not yet anyway.

Fast is still going strong, though, and has launched a new corporate Web site.

Overture press release.

OpenFind is off the air

(April 21 2003) Gary Price reports that the new Taiwanese search engine OpenFind has stopped working. The administrators have put up a sign saying that it is "under reconstruction".

OpenFind has been followed by some interest as it is one of the few new independent search engines that try to map large parts of the Internet.

How many clicks does it take?

(April 20 2003) In the first installment of Search Engine Marketing Done Right Steve Winkler took a look at the logical order in which you should apply search engine marketing (SEM) techniques.

In the new second part he discusses the art of turning well optimized pages into efficient sales tools.

New version of Ask Jeeves

(April 20 2003) Ask Jeeves has launched yet another version of its search site. Like Yahoo! and AlltheWeb it is following in the footsteps of Google, introducing a less complex lay out.

Ask Jeeves is now trying to include more information in regular search results, adding, for instance, pictures and news headlines if relevant.

If you search for "photos of Volkswagen", you will actually get pictures of such cars. Search for "new on Iraq", and Jeeves will present selected headlines near the top of the page.

You will find related search queries in the right hand column.

We have had reports that the new version of Ask Jeeves will add a large number of Google Adwords (pay per click text ads) on some searches. We have not been able to duplicate this from Norway, but it may be that Ask Jeeves delivers different results to American visitors.

On some search terms, however, we have observed one graphic ad, one "featured sponsor" and four "Sponsored Web Results before the regular search results from the Teoma search engine, which is a little bit too much in our taste (search for instance for "search engine optimization"). On the other hand, this does not apply to most queries.

All in all, this looks like a positive upgrade of Ask Jeeves.

New features on AlltheWeb

(April 16 2003) The AlltheWeb team continues to add new features to its search site.

AlltheWeb now links each query term and phrase to a dictionary lookup on dictionary.com. The link is not that easy to find, actually. Click on the underlined search query in the blue bar near the top of the result page.

Windows users may now enable keyboard shortcuts to replace mouse movements. You may use a combination of the ALT key and any letter of your choice to:

You activate this feature in the customize section.

AlltheWeb has also added a "what people search for" page, presenting the last ten queries performed at AlltheWeb. Offensive terms are filtered out.

Overture joins scumware company

(April 11 2003) The Overture pay-per-click text ad company has signed an agreement with "scumware" deliverer Gator. Kalena Jordan and other search engine optimization providers are mighty upset about Overture's move.

Click here to read more about the Overture/Gator deal.

Search Engine Watch Relaunch

(April 10 2003) Danny Sullivan & Co. at Search Engine Watch has launched a new version of the search engine oriented site. The design is definitely more "third millennium".

There is a clean and transparent lay out and most sections are easier to find. This is important, as the most problematic part of having a huge content-rich site like SEW, is to be able to direct visitors to the right section and the most relevant page.

The major change as regards the front page is the new focus on news and current articles. The center column list headlines and summaries of the latest news items. Links to the most important sections are found in the left hand column.

We like the new design. Some have found the color scheme a bit disturbing, but we do not find the orange that dominating.

Most web site owners that have to pay the bills, need to integrate some kind of advertising, and that may ruin even the most elegant of designs. Internet.com, the owner of the site, has gathered several animated mini-banners in a box on the right hand side of most pages, the members' area excluded. It is disturbing, but if that is the price we have to pay, so be it.

In an intervention at Webmaster World Danny Sullivan explains that he has hidden the site search box on purpose: "There are many people who come thinking Search Engine Watch is a search engine. Putting a big search box up there just reinforces that mistake. Instead, my first line of defense is navigational links."

Indeed, we have found the same to be true at Pandia. Most people using the site search engine tend to search for anything but search engine related topics. The SEW search form can be found in the left hand column.

New test of search engine relevance

(April 10 2003) VeriTest has made a test of search engine result relevance for the Inktomi search engine company. The goal of the testing was to compare the relative quality of the top 10 web documents returned by Inktomi, Google, Wisenut, Fast, Teoma and AltaVista. The result listings were judged according to certain relevancy guidelines.

Weighted results show that Inktomi and Google are very close as regards relevance, while the others lag somewhat behind. The study found, however, that the rate of acceptable documents fell more rapidly in positions two through ten for WiseNut, Teoma, AltaVista and Fast AlltheWeb than it did for Inktomi and Google.

We have not been able to control the test results. In any case, quality testing of search results is a very difficult task, indeed. Nevertheless, it seems that VeriTest has done its best to obtained balanced results.

That being said, it is interesting to note that VeriTest did a survey for Google in 2000, where Google came out on top. In the Webmaster World discussion forum, the Google representative, GoogleGuy, points out that when AltaVista commissioned eTesting Labs/VeriTest to compare search engines, AltaVista was judged the most relevant (2000).

Anyone who has worked in marketing and politics knows that the trick is not to lie, but to find the indicators that tell your story. The most interesting thing about this study is not that Inktomi comes out on top, but that all of the search engines are so close. Obviously the non-Google segment of this industry has done a lot to catch up with the world leader.

Yahoo! is clearly contemplating a switch from Google to Inktomi at their search site. This is the kind of report that might strengthen such a resolve.

New version of Yahoo!

(April 7 2003) Yahoo! definitely fears the rise of Google on the search engine scene. They are now launching a new version of their search site -- and yes, it is becoming more like Google.

Search Engine Marketing Done Right

(April 6 2003) Having difficulty obtaining fair ranking in Yahoo? Are you puzzled with why you cannot find your site through a search on AOL?

Whether you are a newbie to marketing online or you’re a seasoned veteran these problems may perplex you. Read on to see that it may not be a lack of effort or intellect but a simple and easily corrected error in your marketing syntax.

Pandia Guest Writer Steve Winkler takes a look at the order of search engine optimization operations.

Microsoft to develop its own search engine?

(April 6 2003) You can say a lot about Microsoft, but it is definitely not a timid company. Having developed the dominating operating system, word processor and spreadsheet of the world, it also decided to conquer the Web. It did, with its Explorer Web browser.

In the search arena, however, it has relied on others. Inktomi delivers search engine results to the MSN portal, LookSmart directory listings and Overture pay-per-click text ads.

News.com reports that Microsoft plans to triple its search staffing to 200 employees.

A report written by SoundView Technology Group analyst Jordan Rohan concludes that Microsoft probably will develop its own paid search platform. According to News.com Microsoft is denying this.

A source in the company does confirm, however, that they will invest more heavily in search technology. The idea is to improve the relevancy and speed of search results. This makes sense, as Google's success in the area owes much to the quality of search results.

Hence the fact that Microsoft is investing more in search technology does not necessarily mean that the company will stop using data from Inktomi and Overture.

See also Microsoft denies paid-search plans (Internetnews.com)

Fast to power Goo multimedia search

(April 1 2003) Goo, one of Japan's leading search sites has asked the Norwegian company Fast to power its multimedia search engine. NTT-X Inc, who owns the Goo site, has apparently registered a higher demand for pictures, videos and music files. No wonder, given the combination of more widespread broadband access and an increasing thirst for MP3 and other media files.

FAST Multimedia Search contains over 130 million multimedia web objects, and is refreshed every 25-30 days. You may also search this database at the AlltheWeb site.

Overture will take over Fast's Web search unit this month, including the multimedia search engine. This will not change the deal made with NTT-X.

Scandinavian portal company chooses Google instead of Fast

(April 1 2003) Win some, loose some.

Just weeks before Overture is taking over the Fast Web search engine, Fast looses a very important European client. The Swedish search service provider Eniro AB has signed an agreement with Google, making Google the search engine of Eniro's search sites and portals.

Eniro was formerly the Swedish telecom company Telia's catalog company. Eniro bought Scandinavian Online (SOL) one of the leading portal companies in Scandinavia in the summer of 2001, and has since been a very important player on the Nordic portal arena.

The sites affected are Evreka in Sweden, Eniro in Denmark, Kvasir in Norway and Suomi24 in Finland.

Eniro press release.

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

Search Engine News Weblog Archive April 2003

Pubconference IV