January 2001 Archive

Google Indexes PDF Files

In a major break with the tradition of other search engines, Google has begun indexing the full text of Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files. These are identified in Google search results with a [PDF] designation at the front. Instead of a cached copy of the full PDF file, Google offers a text version. Google does not offer a way to search only their indexed PDF files, but just adding PDF as an extra search term can often bring up some results. Try laser pdf to see an example of the documents that may now be found.

According to Chris Sherman's report, Google has already indexed 13 million PDF files. Full implementation on all Google's search clusters is not due until Feb. 5, so you may or may not find any PDF files in your results (and for the search above) until that time. Either way, this is a significant addition to their already large Web database, and it means that Google may well find even more documents not available from other search engines.

The Demise of Go

Disney announces plans to abandon the Go portal. The site will continue for a time, but the go.com domain name and the Infoseek search engine components will be sold off. See "Disney Finally Gives Up on Troubled Go.com" at Internet World News and Danny Sullivan's report for more details. While I suspect that someone will buy and maintain the Infoseek search engine, I've updated my review, chart, and search engines by features pages with information about the domain limit available in the advanced search in case Infoseek does disappear altogether.

Google Review Updates

I've finally updated my Google review as well as the feature chart, and search engines by features pages to reflect Google's new allintitle and allinurl field searches available in their advanced search and via the allintitle: and allinurl: syntax. Just note that you cannot yet combine any other search term with the field search statements.