April 2001 Archive

AltaVista Advanced Changes & New URL

AltaVista has changed the look and URL of their advanced search. The new URL is altavista.com/sites/search/adv and there are a couple main changes that I have noticed:

• The Boolean box no longer is a multiple line (as in big) box, but is a regular single line form box.
• The date limit has a new, pre-set time frame drop down option.

A few general changes on all AltaVista Searches:

• Results are no longer numbered
• Each search box also has links to the other two search options: Search Assistant, Basic Search, and Advanced Search. The Search Assistant is the new name for their Power Search
• All records seem to have the 'More pages from this site' note at the end, even if there is only one page from the site and even when the Advanced or Power search is used without checking the 'one result per site' box.

Usenet Archives back to 1995

Google has come through on their promise to bring up the full Deja archive of Usenet news postings. The Google Groups site now offers the archive back to March 29, 1995. Google claims that is has more than 650 million individual messages. Also, the Google Groups advanced search page has been expanded with options to sort by date, and to restrict language, message ID, author, subject, date, or newsgroup. Google also states that they plan to offer posting ability, like Deja used to have, sometime during May.

Showdown Size Estimates Updated

I have updated my Relative Size Showdown and the Total Size Estimate analyses with data from Apr. 7, 2001. Using 25 search terms, and verifying the actual number of hits available for the largest search engines, Google has pulled into a solid first place, followed by Fast's All the Web and MSN Search's Inktomi. I also updated the Database Change Over Time page which compares the same 8 searches run on the five largest search engines at various times from May 1999 to April 2001.

Yahoo! Reverses on Porn

Now that their porn selling has received some media attention, Yahoo! has reversed itself. According to today's press release, Yahoo! will remove the "adult-related" products from its shopping, auctions, and classified sections. But I'm guessing the adult links will remain in the directory.

Yahoo! Cuts Staff & Sells Porn

And what about Yahoo!? Today they announce a 12% work force reduction, which means that about 420 jobs will go. Meanwhile, an AP news story reports that Yahoo! is expanding its sales of porn films. Both moves are aimed at increasing income, but at what expense to the quality of the site?

NBCi on the Block

It sounds like NBCi is about to disappear. They have announced that NBC will re-acquire NBCi. While the service continues to operate and the press release says that its future will be decided in the coming months, but it looks likely to go the route of Go. The search engine component may be one of the first to be dropped.

Inktomi Review Updated

The Showdown Inktomi Review page has been updated for a few changes, including MSN Search as the new Inktomi favorite.

EOMonitor Dies

EOMonitor, formerly javElink, a Web site change tracking service is no longer available. The Showdown Current Awareness Tools page has been updated for EOMonitor and the also defunct Deja tracker.

Northern Light Adds Experts

In a new twist on its Special Collection, Northern Light has added Sopheon's database of experts. Available on the Power and Business search pages, use the "expert biographies" limit to see some examples. These are also integrated into regular Northern Light searches. See the press release for more details.

Elsevier Launches Its Science Search Engine

Scirus, a science-oriented search engine is launched by Elsevier, a major scientific journal publisher. Scirus includes a database of Elsevier articles available for a fee along with a portion of the Fast database. Note the following in its press release [Word format]. "It currently covers more than 60 million science-related pages and is capable of reading non-text files in formats such as PDF and Postscript." I could find no evidence yet that it actually indexes PDF or Postscript files on the Web, but apparently, it is capable of it.