New Look at AlltheWeb and New Site Info

AlltheWeb has a brand new look. There are both cosmetic and content changes. First, the cosmetic changes:

• Banner ads are gone
• More readable results pages
• Advanced search has a new Boolean box
• New color palette
• "Streamline user interface"
• Four font size change icons are gone
• New slogan: Find it all

Users can still select from a variety of skins or specify their own style sheet. Personally, if find the new look a significant improvement for the most part. But I am disappointed that the related searches and multimedia results (with the number of hits in their image and/or video databases) are now at the bottom rather than in the right margin. Also, there is now a search box at the top and bottom of the search results page, but after an advanced search, you have to click on the "edit your advanced search" link to go back to a full advanced search page, and that link is only right below the box at the top of the page, not the one at the bottom.

Even more exciting is their somewhat hidden new search feature, AlltheWeb URL Investigator. This is invoked if you search for a URL. Enter a URL, and the results page will include some if not all of the following information about that URL. See an example for loc.gov.

• FAST Facts including page language, size, and last update date
• The record and a link for the page itself
• The number of pages that link to the URL
• The number of pages that contain the term
• The number of pages at the site
• An Easywhois link to domain ownership information
• A link to the Wayback Machine copies of how the page used to look
• Subdomains at the site, if any
• Open Directory category the page is in, if any

A few other changes to note:

• There is now an easier switch for the offensive content filter. Just click On or Off in the upper right-hand corner to make the change.
• Also, the FAST Topics option is gone from the preferences settings. After months of waiting for FAST Topics to reappear, it looks like they have given up on that initiative.
• The count on the home page went from 2,112,188,990 yesterday to 2,147,483,647 today.