February 2004 Archive

New Search at Yahoo! (Drops Google)

As has long been expected, Yahoo! has announced the launch of its own search engine database and dropped Google. After using AltaVista, then Inktomi, and then Google to deliver search results after directory listings (and now that they own Inktomi, AltaVista, and AlltheWeb), Yahoo! now uses its own database. It appears to be primarily from Inktomi, but its results differ from MSN Search and HotBot which also use Inktomi. Several positive comments at first look:

• It still has cached copies of pages
• It is a large database, sometime finding more than Google
• Most advanced search features still work

This launch explains why Google suddenly changed their number from 3.3 billion pages to 4.3 billion.