Search Engine News Weblog Archive November 2004

Below find older entries to the Pandia search engine news weblog.

For the latest search engine news, go to the Pandia Search World page or the Pandia Search Central home page.

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China censors Google News

(November 30 2004, update December 1) Interfax reports that Google's new service has been inaccessible in China for more than a week.

Interfax adds that the service is still available through the use of proxy servers, a clear indication that it has been blocked by the authorities.

The Google news search engine and news aggregator gives Chinese searchers access to uncensored news from all over the world, something the Chinese dictatorship fears more than anything else in the world.

In September Pandia reported on Google giving in to Chinese authorities by excluding some sites from the news listings presented to Chinese searchers. It didn't help. InternetNews.com reports that the Chinese government might be trying to force searchers to use the Chinese version of the site. According to Reporters Without Borders that version has been purged of the most critical news reports.

China's road towards internationalization and market based capitalism makes the demand for freedom of speech stronger and stronger. Indeed, other countries in the region that have followed this path have ended up as democracies, including Taiwan and South Korea.

The Chinese censorship is another clear indication of the Internet's power as a political equalizer, meaning that search engines like Google and Yahoo! are not only important tools for knowledge diffusion, but for democratization as well.

Amnesty International on human rights in China.

Google to search TV

(November 30 2004) News.com reports that Google is preparing a search engine for your TV set.

Both regular broadcasts, DVDs and Internet TV transmissions contain closed-caption text, i.e. descriptions of the TV programs, subtitles for the hearing impaired etc.

Google is to use this text to identify the content of the programs, much in the same way as they identify webpages today.

This will, for instance, make it possible to search for the name of a person, and get a list of programs containing relevant information, with still photos from shows or movies.

Google keeps its mouth shut about the technology, but has apparently been presenting it to representatives for American broadcasting corporations.

News.com reports that Microsoft and Yahoo! are working on similar technologies.

Thanks to Search Engine Lowdown for drawing our attention to this one.

Google's copyright problems

(November 29 2004) Google has been brought to court for its use of thumbnails images in its image search engine.

Pandia takes a look at Google's use of thumbnails and cached versions of webpages.

EEVL ejournal search engine

(November 24 2004) We don't no about the name. However, EEVL is far from evil. It is rather a beneficial search engine that lets you search free online ejournals in the fields of engineering, mathematics and computing.

EEVL is a UK-based not-for-profit guide. It is run by information specialists from Heriot Watt University, with input from other universities in the UK, including the University of Birmingham, and Cranfield University.

EEVL now provides three new dedicated ejournal search engines:

• Computing, searching 60 full-text ejournals in computing.
• Mathematics, searches 28 full-text ejournals in mathematics.
• Engineering searches 160 full-text ejournals in engineering.

There is also a search form for searching all three databases at once.

It should be noted that EEVL provides more than these search engines. There is also a special directory for sources related to engineering, mathematics and computing, including a subset of essential key sites in these fields.

List of indexed ejournals.

Google adds new search engine for scholars

(November 18 2004) Google has launched a new search engine focusing on the needs of scientists and scholars.

The Google Scholar index is based on a subset of the regular Google index, but -- as Google says -- this service enables you to search specifically for "scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research."

The search algorithm is apparently a little bit different from the regular one.

There is also a special search query syntax rule to be learned. If you want to find a specific article it is best to combine a search phrase (in quotes) with the last name of the article's first author: author:einstein "theory of relativity".

If a search result is marked [citation], that means that Google has found a reference, but that the article is not available on the open Web. This also applies to books. Some of the articles will not be available for free on the Web.

For the time being the service will not include Google Adword text ads.

See also the Google Scholar FAQ.

Help, my site has been banned by Google!

(November 17 2004) It is the ultimate search engine marketing nightmare: Your site has been removed from Google's index and your traffic is falling.

By all means panic. Then draw your breath and read our Banned by Google Survival Guide and learn how to get your pages back in. And yes, the tutorial works for the other search engines as well.

MSN desktop search tool preview

(November 16 2004) Microsoft is working hard to deliver its own desktop search tool, i.e. software that lets you search your own computer and email toolbox fast and efficiently. The present search capabilities of Outlook, Word and Windows are suboptimal -- to put it kindly. The new search tool will, for instance, integrate the excellent Lookout tool for searching Outlook.

Now, there are trade secrets and there are trade secrets. The site Neowin recently published a series of unauthorized snapshots of the new desktop tool.

Microsoft's reaction is very interesting. At the new MSN Search weblog "osh" argues that this was an unauthorized disclosure, but is kind enough to include a link to the Neowin snapshots. MSN has concluded -- correctly in our opinion -- that in this case any publicity is good publicity.

"osh" adds that MSN is still on track to deliver a beta version of the product before the end of 2004: "We plan to release the beta bits only when we feel they are ready from a quality and completeness standpoint," he writes, and adds that they are looking forward to getting feedback from beta users at that time.

The snapshots reveals that the new MSN desktop tool will be a toolbar suite which alters the toolbars in Outlook, Internet Explorer and Windows Explorer giving you direct access to the new search technology in all these programs.

The software also adds an MSN Deskbar to the Windows taskbar, a search field that can be used to search the hard drive, much in the way of the Copernic desktop tool.

Jux2 lets you compare search engine results

(November 16 2004) Jux2 is a relatively new metasearch engine that lets you compare results from Google, Yahoo! and Ask Jeeves.

The Jux2 search listings include information on the position of a relevant web page in each of the three search engines. This is interesting, as it shows how much the search results actually differ between the three.

Jux2 notes that in tests conducted using the 500 most popular search terms, on average, Google and Yahoo! shared only 3.8 of their top 10 results. In a separate test of 91 random searches, Jux2 found that Google and Yahoo! share only 23% of their top 100 results.

However, it should be noted that Jux2 is still in its beta test phase, and may not -- as SiteLines has pointed out -- be totally reliable.

Search engine algorithm development is no exacts science, and the lack of overlap does not necessarily mean that one search engine delivers lower quality than the other. This does prove the usefulness of using more than one search engine, however.

Jux2 serves are more than a toy for search engine oriented people. It also works as a metasearch engine in its own right. There is even a separate search form for advanced searching, that gives room for a little menu based Boolean searching.

See also Search Engine Watch Blog.

Google reaches 8 billion documents

(November 11 2004) Web masters have noticed some very aggressive Google crawlers recently. Google has obviously been indexing new pages en masse.

And indeed, today Google announced that it has expanded its search engine database to 8 million documents, including web pages, PDF files, PowerPoint files, Flash, PostScript, JavaScript (sic!) and -- presumably -- Word and Excel files.

MSN's new test index (see below) is currently containing some 5 billion pages. The size of Yahoo's index is not public.

Again, it is not size that matters most in this game, but the quality of the search engine algorithm that picks out the top ten result pages. Still, a larger index may make it easier to pick information on more obscure and narrow topics.

MSN Search one step closer to launch

(November 10 2004, update November 11) Several news sites have announced that MSN will launch its new search engine today. This is not really the case.

Others have told their readers that they will present a beta test version of the new search engine for the very first time. This is not correct, either. MSN has had a tech preview available for some time now.

What is clear is that MSN has upgraded their Techpreview to a more advanced public beta test site. This site will be run in parallel with the regular MSN search site and portal, which both are powered by the Yahoo! search engine at the moment.

So MSN is not rushing it. They want the new search engine to be as good as Google's before they do a proper launch -- which is clearly the most sensible thing to do.

The company seems very optimistic. MSN chief executive Steve Ballmer told shareholders on Tuesday that "We will catch up, we will surpass [Google]". But then gain, this is exactly the kind of thing you are supposed to tell shareholders.

Among the new features added to the MSN search engine is a "Near Me" button that restricts your search to your local area. The feature is based on your computers IP address, but you may also set the geographical location manually.

There is extensive support for advanced searching. A separate "Search Builder" link opens up a more advanced search form on the search page itself. You may limit your search to specific domains, countries, languages or regions or to pages that link to a defined URL. The "Search Builder" then transforms your query to the correct Boolean syntax.

Another innovation is the search engine algorithm sliders. Yes, you may adjust the search ranking by degree of match, page popularity and freshness.

It is this type of innovation that gives Microsoft a chance against Google. However, there is no reason to believe that MSN will overtake Google as the leading search portal in the very near future. This technology is not better than Google's, and Google has built a better brand. However, searchers will definitely benefit from getting such a strong alternative to Google.

Note:The beta search page may be unavailable at times. There are obviously many who would like to test out the new search engine.

EWeek has more: MSN Search Beta Set to Launch
Webmaster World discussion on the beta version
New beta test home page
Search Engine Watch on the new beta test

Using linking in your search engine marketing efforts

(November 9 2004) Having relevant high quality sites link to your web pages will help their search engine rankings. But how do you get them to link back to you?

Pandia Guest Writer Peter Larmey discusses the benefits of a good linking strategy.

Using press releases in search engine marketing

(November 9 2004) Newsworthy press releases help your business. What if you could get traffic and better rankings, too?

The four easy steps outlined in Laura Cunningham's article on using press releases as a search engine marketing tool will help you get results.

Copernic Desktop Search targets European market

(November 5 2004)Copernic has launched a strategy to conquer Europe. This week they announced German, French, and Dutch versions of their Copernic Desktop Search software (CDS) and an Italian version is soon to follow.

Pandia has recently reported on the race for Total Search and the important role of desktop search in the struggle to dominate the web search market. Copernic beat Google in the race to launch a desktop search tool and their excellent tool is set to win market shares now that it is available in several languages.

Microsoft is struggling to keep up and recently announced that they will launch their own desktop search tool by the end of the year. Yahoo! is working on their own version.

Copernic has for along time had another software tool for searching the web (i.e. without the ability to search your own computer). This “Copernic Agent” has been very popular in Europe and has been downloaded by 15 million users. The company now hopes that the CDS desktop search tool will be a success in Europe too.

CDS searches personal files, emails and attachments and even pictures, music, and videos. The latest version, CDS 1.1, gives new options for customization and has an improved user interface.

As a next step, Copernic plans Korean and other Asian language versions of CDS.

Exalead: new advanced search engine

(November 2 2004) A French company is testing a new global search engine with some very interesting advanced features. It is already powering the French version of AOL Search, but what does it have to offer the rest of us?

Lars Våge takes a look at the Exalead search engine.

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