June 2005 Archive

Adaptive Searching at Google

Want to see different results at the top than others do? Try Google's new Personalized Search (in beta of course). "Personalized Search orders your search results based on what you've searched for in the past." This new project from Google Labs was announced on the Google Blog. You may have to stay logged in for awhile and build up a history pattern before you see any change in the results order.

New Syntax at MSN Search

MSN Search explains its new operators for finding specific file types, advanced link searching, pages containing certain file types, and more. Here is the list of new prefixes:

• filetype: for non-HTML files like PDFs and Word .docs.
• linkdomain: for link pointing to any page in a specified domain
• contains: for pages with certain content types
• inurl: for terms within URLs
• inanchor: for words with anchor text on linking pages
• intitle: for word within the HTML title element
• inbody: to specify that the word should be in the body of the document

Note that after the prefix, multiple terms can be ORed together by putting them in parentheses. The example given is contains:(rss xml rdf atom). Also note that phrases are not allowed after the prefix. Online one word or the ORed set.

A9 Updates Look and Adds New Features

A9 announces new interface changes:

• More Intuitive Search Column Selection: The buttons on the right have been replaced with checkboxes on the top. These checkboxes let you choose what to search. The checkboxes appear not only on the search results page, but also on the home page, so you can decide in advance what to search.
• Easier Access to Additional Search Columns: In addition to checkboxes for the default set of searches, a "More Choices" dropdown provides easy access to additional searches. (The contents of this menu will change over time.) You can also use the menu to access over 200 additional OpenSearch columns.
• Personalized Tools on the Home Page: Your History, Your Bookmarks, Your Diary, and Discover are shown on the home page only when you turn them on. These tools are only shown when you are signed in.
• Location Search: The Yellow Pages location box opens automatically if you check the Yellow Pages checkbox. This lets you enter the location before you search.
• Single Column Mode: You can now set a preference to show only one column at a time, instead of showing multiple columns. You can enable this on the preferences page by selecting "Only one column can be open". Only signed in users can change their preferences.
• In Line Help on Preference page: The preferences page now has in line explanations of some of the preferences.
• More Vertical Space for Search Results: You can easily show and hide the column selectors on the search results page so that you can see more results.
• Faster Site: The home page is now much smaller and loads faster.
• Choice of Checkboxes or Buttons: Some of our users prefer the new checkboxes at the top of the page to select search results. Other users preferred the buttons of the classic web site. You can now choose either style on the preferences page.
• Choice of Tabs or Multiple Tools on the home page: If you are signed in, you can choose between one tool at a time using tabs, or multiple tools in columns similar to the search results page.
• Drag and Drop Changes: Drag and Drop to the bookmarks column is off by default on the search results page. Drag and Drop allows links from other columns to be dragged into the bookmarks column, making it easy to make any search result into a bookmark. However, some users found that it interfered with built in browser drag and drop which allows dragging links to other browsers. You can turn Drag and Drop on in the preferences page or at the bottom of the Your Bookmarks column.
• Fixed redirect bug that made it appear that the A9.com site had an error if the search result site was unavailable.

New Interface at A9

A9 has been testing some interface changes which are now live. These include a revised Column Selection, a "More Choices" drop down menu for access to additional database, an optional Single Column Mode, more vertical space for results, and more personalization options. More details in the June 23rd announcement.