Pandia Search Engine Weblog June 2004

(June 30 2004) Microsoft is, as Pandia has previously reported, planning to add what we call "total search" to their next incarnation of the Windows operating system, codenamed "Longhorn", which should be ready in 2006.

"Total search" allows you to use the same search form and search technology to search the Web as well as your own network and hard drive.

The Apple Macintosh computer already has a program that lets you do something similar, called Sherlock.

However, Sherlock is to be replaced by a new feature called Spotlight in the next version of the Mac OS. This version is known as "Tiger" by insiders. Apple goes for cats, Microsoft likes cattle.

Spotlight will be able to search the content of any kind of data file.

Apple will apparently add a new search form to the upper right hand corner of the desktop. Tiger should be ready next year, well ahead of Longhorn.

Source: The International Herald Tribune.

Overture adds local text ads

(June 30 2004) Overture, the Yahoo!-owned pay per click search engine that serves text ads to Yahoo! and other search sites, now allows advertisers to limit their ads to a local area.

Local Match lets you choose a geographic area (0.5-to 100-mile radius around your location) in which your ad will be seen. The feature it limited to US customers.

It should be noted that Overture is not able to pinpoint the location of the searcher, hence the feature relies on the user giving the information needed to determine the geographic location.

A search for "San Diego dentist" will work, "dentist" will not.

Submitting your site to the Open Directory

(June 30 2004) Getting your site an optimum listing in the Open Directory is vitally important as far as search engine positioning is concerned, as Google gives a lot of importance to sites included in the "DMOZ".

Pandia guest writer Sumantra Roy has more about getting listed in the Open Directory.

More Yahoo! Shortcuts

(June 27 2004) You can use the Yahoo! search form for more than searching. Use it , for instance, as a calculator or a currency converter.

Lars Iselid presents more Yahoo! Shortcuts.

Yahoo! and AlltheWeb add suggested searches

(June 26 2004) Gary Price reports that Yahoo! has added a new feature to its search engine results: search term suggestions. In this way Yahoo! helps you with alternative search queries that might give more targeted results.

This is no way a new invention, but it is good to see that one of the major search engines make use of it. Yahoo! has implemented a similar feature at its AlltheWeb search sites (which is now powered by the same search engine as Yahoo!).

To get alternative search phrases at Yahoo! you make use of the list of "related searches" below the search form. Search Engine Lowdown has provided the following link to an example page including such related results.

Click on "Show all" at the end of the list to get a complete presentation of related searches. The list of related searches does not appear for more complex queries.

The AlltheWeb "Refine your search" feature is a little bit more advanced. First of all AlltheWeb will give you more alternatives right away. Moreover, there is a + button that lets you add the alternative keywords to your present query and a - button that lets you subtract them.

These features will obviously help searchers getting more targeted search queries. They can also be used by search engine marketers looking for alternative keyword phrases for which to optimize their pages.

Ask Jeeves to drop paid inclusion program

(June 25 2004) Both Yahoo! and Ask Jeeves offers so-called paid inclusion programs, i.e. programs where web site owners may pay the search engine to get pages included in the search engine index.

The argument has been sites that are updated frequently -- and this especially applies to shopping sites -- will benefit from getting revisited by the search engine spiders on a more regular basis (normally every 48 hours). Moreover, participation in the program will guarantee that the pages are included.

However, many search engine experts feel uneasy about such schemes. Some suspect that sites that pay for this are given better search engine rankings. Others say that any decent search engine should serve fresh content for free, and that such programs are unnecessary. Google has for instance never implemented such a service.

Ask Jeeves has already abandoned its XML-feed inclusion service, where sites could deliver database feeds containing information about new pages into the Teoma search engine, i.e. the search engine that powers Ask Jeeves. In August the company will end the rest of the program as well.

The main reason seems to be that the program skews search results. Delivering high quality, trustworthy and relevant search results, is to be the way to a searchers heart, and searchers will soon leave if they feel disappointed. Ask Jeeves is apparently not willing to take that risk.

AV Online has more.
The Ask Jeeves Site Submit Program.

Get your own Google!

(June 19 2004) Google just goes on innovating. This time they have extended their Adsense program to include free, branded versions of the Google search engine.

This means that you can set up a Google search form on your own site. The search form will generate search engine result pages with your logo and color scheme, hosted by Google.

These search result pages will include Google Adwords, i.e. pay per click text ads. Any sites taking part in the program gets a slice of this revenue.

The service has been favorably received by many webmasters, although there are complaints about sloppy search form HTML-coding and the limited ability to control the design of the search engine results pages and the search box.

Is there any point in adding such a search form to your website? Probably not. Most searchers go to dedicated search engine sites and portals to search the web in general, not to content or business sites.

However, there is another way of putting it to use. If your site is indexed by Google, you may also use this search form as a site search engine. The ads served will in general be very relevant to the content of your site, leading to higher click through rates and more revenue.

We have made our own Google search engine, although this one will probably not be a permanent Pandia feature.

Former About.com Search Guide becomes editor of Search Engine Guide

(June 19 2004) Jennifer Laycock will become the new editor-in-chief of Search Engine Guide, the well known site dedicated to search engine marketing and search engine news.

Laycock joins Search Engine Guide after serving for more than a year as the web search guide for the popular content Web site, About.com.

In addition to her new responsibilities at Search Engine Guide, Laycock will stay on as the forum administrator of search engine marketing discussion forum JimWorld.com.

The web search behavior of adult learners

(June 16 2004) An EU Socrates project has mapped the search strategies of adult learners. There is something in it for other searchers and search engine marketers as well.

Read more about SEEKS -- Adult learners’ information seeking strategies in the Information Society -- and what their findings mean for web designers and marketers.

Pandia to publish Internetbrus material

(June 13 2004) Anyone who has studied the list of search engine resources found in the left hand column of this page, knows that there are quite a few interesting sites out there published in another language than English.

Pandia has provided links to the relevant AltaVista translation, but -- to be honest -- such automatic translations are often more entertaining than informative. Moreover, some languages are missing, including the Scandinavian ones.

One such site is the Swedish weblog Internetbrus, a service for searchers and educators that has been online since early 2001. It is owned and edited by the librarians Lars Våge and Lars Iselid, and contains a vast amount of information on search resources and techniques.

Norwegian and Swedish are for all practical purposes branches of the same language, which has made it possible for the Pandia team to follow the writings of the two "Larses". We have now got their permission to publish selected articles from Internetbrus at Pandia, thus making some of their writing accessible to English speaking readers.

The first one is presented below:

Link search with Yahoo's linkdomain

(June 13 2004) Is it possible to find the sites that are linking to your own on the Yahoo! search engine database?

Actually, link search works really well in Yahoo! if you know the right syntax.

Lars Våge has more on the Yahoo! link and linkdomain search terms.

A web directory that helps you do, not find

(June 13 2004) Gimpsy is a different kind of web directory, listing only sites that provide online activity or help you accomplish a specific task.

David Wallace interviews Gimpsy's founder, Mordechai Chachamu.

What lies ahead for local search engine technology

(June 6 2004) No topic has received as much coverage recently as that of “local search” - the ability to find search results that are targeted to a user’s geographical preference. Google, Yahoo and Ask Jeeves are all making impressive advancements with local search, but there is another company that is vying for the local search crown.

Andy Beal talks to InfoSpace's Arnaud Fischer about the development of local search.

Yahoo! Japan abandons Google

(June 6 2004) Yahoo! Japan is following in the footsteps of all the other Yahoo! sites worldwide and has stopped using the Google database for providing search engine results.

Yahoo! Japan is now powered by the Yahoo! search engine. Pay per click results are delivered by Google.

Webmaster World discussion

Search Engine Watch launches discussion forum

(June 3 2004) Search Engine Watch is probably the most influential site on search engines, well edited by SE expert Danny Sullivan. So, when Search Engine Watch launches their own search engine discussion forums, search engine enthusiasts should take notice.

Our initial question is whether the Net needs yet another forum for Web search and search engine marketing discussions. There are so many of them, including the world leader Webmaster World. It is probably a silly question. We prefer different pubs and different cafes, and each of the forums have their special atmosphere. New forums will die if people don't show up.

The new forum is still in its beta test phase, and there is not that much debate going on at the moment. However, Danny has managed to recruit some good moderators, so this is definitely a forum to keep an eye on.

The forum is organized like most forums of this kind. There are separate sections for search engines, marketing strategies and general search engines. All of the major search engines have their own sub forums.

Search Engine Watch Forums

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

Search Engine News Weblog Archive June 2004

Apple to add total search