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What's New on Search Engine Showdown
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News from Online:
Page updated Mar. 31, 2006
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June 29, 2000: And another 500 million record announcement. Bright Station's WebTop today claims in a press release that its search engine has also broken the 500 million record mark. The latest issue of Showdown News has been sent out to subscribers. The Web edition is available under the archive listing.
Two new Search Engine Showdown analyses are now available: June 27, 2000: Well, Inktomi will continue to work with Yahoo! in some capacities. Despite their pending ouster by Google from the back-end search engine space, Inktomi will be the search provider for Yahoo!'s new enterprise portal push See the Inktomi press release. June 26, 2000: Big announcements from Google this morning. First, they claim a new one billion plus record database. However, note that it says that 560 million were fully indexed while the other 500 million are only "partially indexed." Thus, it is probably effectively closer to a 560 million record database. Secondly, Yahoo! will move to using Google as their default search results provider. I assume this means it will replace Inktomi. This is supposed to happen within the next 30 days. June 22, 2000: LookSmart announces a redesigned home page with a greater emphasis on their partners. June 21, 2000: An article in Salon article noted that Deja last month lost its pre-May 1999 Usenet archives. It used to go back to 1995 and at times had promised that it would add even older archives. The archives are supposed to be available again before the end of this year. Deja Review updated. June 18, 2000: At some point recently, iWon has added LookSmart as their directory (replacing the Inktomi directory engine), Direct Hit, and RealNames. For their Inktomi database, they do not yet appear to be using the 500 million record GEN3 database. June 17, 2000: Google has added news headlines at the top of its search results. Up to three headlines from news Web sites (such as CNN.com, ABCNews.com, Excite news wires, etc.) will be displayed for certain searches but not for others. AltaVista's translation service, Babel Fish, has added three new options: German to French, French to German, and Russian to English. It still is limited to translating 5K of text. The Go Translator which also uses Systran software does not yet include the three new options, but it will translate more the 5K worth of text. June 16, 2000: Excite has launched its new Precision Search with an emphasis on the "clean and simple" approach. It has added some features and removed others. It now links to Category Search, News Search, Photo Search, and AV Search at the top. Relevance ranking now relies much more on link analysis with a weighting towards established sites. Meanwhile, the related Web pages "more like this" feature is gone along with suggested searches. The language limits, directory results, and news results are still available, but not on the initial screens. The quick results are now in the left margin as opposed to being on top. June 15, 2000: Lycos announces moving to the Fast database for its results from both the main page and the advanced search. (The advanced search had been serving results from Fast for several months.) The main search screen also pulls results from the Open Directory and other databases, depending on the search terms. June 12, 2000: My July Internet Search Engine Update column is now available from the Online Inc. site. June 10, 2000: The latest issue of Showdown News has been sent out to subscribers. The Web edition is available under the archive listing. June 8, 2000: Inktomi announces that it is acquiring Ultraseek from Go.com. May 31, 2000: A CNET story reports on InfraSearch, yet another new approach to Web searching that has come out of Gnutella and Napster technology approaches. The site only gives an example of the technology. May 30, 2000: Take a look at Subjex, another new search technology to watch. It provides a form for entering a question in natural language form. It then gives a few results from AltaVista and asks a follow up question. May 26, 2000: A news story reports that NetZero is going to acquire Simpli.com, which uses a relational dictionary to help in the search process. May 23, 2000: A LookSmart press release announces an upcoming partnership with Gale that will make full-text articles available in the LookSmart directory and via their partner Web sites. It is supposed to be available this summer. May 22, 2000: TheBrain.com releases WebBrain which provides a Java-based graphical view of the Open Directory. May 17, 2000: A recent news story reports on an upcoming search engine from Australia, YourAmigo, that is supposed to have a much larger search engine database which will be faster, larger, and include additional databases. Nothing is available yet, so time will tell whether it can live up to its claims. Meanwhile, WebWombat, another Australian search company, claims to have grown to over 100 million records. Google Review updated with Family Filter information. May 16, 2000: Lycos sells out! Terra Networks is buying Lycos. See the Lycos press release for more details. The new name will be Terra Lycos. May 15, 2000: An NPD Press Release reports a rise in search engine user satisfaction. May 11, 2000: Google has added a family filtering capability, not directly available on the main page, but it can be turned on at the top of the results page. Their language limits are now "out of beta" as well. May 6, 2000: Northern Light and Medialink announce a media monitoring service. May 4, 2000: AltaVista launches a larger directory, search engine index, and a new site. Their directory now includes the full content from both the Open Directory and LookSmart. The entries have been merged, duplicates removed, the hierarchies reworked, and the entries in each section are now sorted using AltaVista's relevance ranking. With over 2 million entries, AltaVista now claims the largest directory. Their search engine index also appears to have over 350 million records now, but I will have a more detailed analysis later. Their new site for the "search enthusiast" is Raging Search at raging.com offers another interface to the AltaVista database. The clean, no banner ads look does finally offer the searcher, through the customize option, the ability to see up to 50 results at once. Apr. 27, 2000: Northern Light and West announce their plans to create a merged content search engine. It is not available yet, but stay tuned. Apr. 24, 2000: Chris Sherman offers his view of the Fifth Search Engine Meeting as a Information Today's NewsBreak as well as on his own WebSearch site at About.com. Apr. 19, 2000: Presentations from the Fifth Search Engine Meeting April 10-11, 2000 are now available. Apr. 17, 2000: Northern Light launches its Geo Search which uses technology from Vicinity to search for geographic information on Web pages. Searchers can use it to limit by street address, city, state, province, ZIP code, and area code. You have to choose either the U.S. or Canada and it is only available for those two countries at this time. The results include extracts of the matching addresses on a page. IntelliSeek, maker of the desktop meta search engine BullsEye, acquires ProFusion, the online meta search engine. See the press release from Intelliseek and the FAQ from ProFusion Apr. 16, 2000: Google Review and Inconsistencies pages updated. In addition to the new language limits, the review now covers the new site: field search and the site clustering in the display. The Inconsistencies page has been updated to reflect the unusual requirements of the different field searches. The link: and related: field searches cannot be combined with another search term, but the site: field search only works if it is combined with another search term. Apr. 15, 2000: Google adds language limit capabilities. The main search screen offers 11 languages. The Language Options page offers the opportunity to select more than one language. It also offers an option for which of those 11 languages the surrounding text will be displayed in. If the initial search limit is used, the surrounding text language is changed to the language of the limit. To avoid that, use the Language Options. This is a beta version of their language limit and may change. Apr. 13, 2000: CNET's Search.com is now a multiple search engine (or metasearch engine if you prefer). It searches several directories and search engines including Snap, Direct Hit, Lycos, Yahoo!, and GoTo. The results are divided into Directory Results, Web Pages (i.e. search engine results), Headlines, and Latest Prices. With CNET owning SavvySearch, there seem to be some similarities. And SavvySearch now gives an option to "see more matches" on Search.com. Apr. 11, 2000: At the Search Engine Meeting in Boston and on in a press release on their site, Inktomi announced a significant size increase. From their one billion plus WebMap database (which is unavailable to the public for searching) they have now extracted a 500 million record database called GEN3. According to Inktomi, it is the duplicates and spam that makes up the bulk of the difference. Both MSN Search and iWon should "soon" be using the new larger database, but don't count on finding it yet. Some quick comparisons using terms from my last full size comparison show the MSN search still finds about the same number of records and that while iWon is finding about double what they found in Feb., that only puts them on par with MSN search and still well below Fast, Northern Light, AltaVista, and even Excite. Apr. 10, 2000: My May 2000 Internet Search Engine Update is now available on the Online Web site. Mar. 14, 2000: Google has added a directory component and directory categories for individual search results record. To use the directory, either select the Browse Web Page link on the main page or go direct to directory.google.com. The directory used is the Open Directory Mar. 9, 2000: Overlap and unique hit analyses updated for the first time since last September. Despite some significant growth in the largest search engines, overlap continues to remain low, at least at the individual page level. Mar. 6, 2000: Danny Sullivan compares the search engines' relevance based on how well they find the official U.S. Presidential candidates' Web sites in an article "Can You Find Your Candidate?" Mar. 4, 2000: Dialog has a new version of K-Check, now called WebCheck, available. Version 1.0 is a free desktop application which ties into Dialog's WebTop. It still does not report the number of hits. Feb. 28, 2000: Northern Light announced its availability as one of Yahoo!'s "Other Search Engines" option available at the end of Yahoo! search. AltaVista's Advanced Search Center has launched out of beta and is not available on the regular Advanced Search page. However, after running a search in the it, an option to "Preview the New Advanced Search Center" is still being displayed. The search features are the same, but the surrounding portal content and information is now aimed at the advanced searcher and Web master. It has specialized search tools, a Web Masters only section, discussion forums, and other features for the advanced searching community. Feb. 27, 2000: The latest issue of Showdown News has been sent out to subscribers. The Web edition is available under the archive listing. Feb. 24, 2000: New search engine statistics available. Fast remains largest. Dead links are down. Relative size, Dead Link Analysis, Change over Time, and total size estimate pages all updated with new information. Overlap and unique hits pages should be updated by next week. Feb. 23, 2000: The Open Directory has now surpassed 1.5 million records. The Directory page has been updated.
Two of my recent columns are now available at the Online, Inc. site:
Feb. 22, 2000: HotBot Review and Snap Review updated to reflect beginning truncation. Feb. 19, 2000: Some Inktomi search engines (including HotBot, Snap, and Anzwers) now support left-hand truncation. The asterisk * can be used at the beginning of a term, anywhere in the middle, or at the end to stand for any number of characters (including zero). HotBot now also more prominently displays the its owners logo at the top -- The Lycos Network. Feb. 17, 2000: The header on Google's cached pages has changed. It still reports the date that the page was cached, but it no longer reports the date the page was last changed (or what date it reported when it was cached). Most of the cached pages also appear to date from early November. Feb. 15, 2000: Fast Search and Transfer announces that Scandinavia Online and its Evreka and Kvasir portals will begin using the Fast database. Feb. 11, 2000: AltaVista is staying in the news. It has now introduced a preview of its new Advanced Search Center. The Advanced Search still functions the same, but the surrounding portal content and information has changed. The new Advanced Search Center will provide help aimed at the Advanced Searcher as well as forums, specialized search tools, a Web Masters only section, and other features for the advanced searching community. There is a Give Us Your Opinion section, so let them know what you think.
Feb. 10, 2000:
AltaVista has now added the ability to find related pages. At the end of some of the search results, a Feb. 7, 2000: AltaVista has divided its multimedia search into three separate Search Centers: Images, video, and MP3/audio. Each search center has a separate page with new search features and the ability to limit by collection. The "portal" section of each of these Search Centers is now targeted at topics of interest to that group of users. So, for example, the images page has picture-related directory sections, image discussion groups, shopping links to camcorders, scanners, and cameras, and a special Image Toolkit. See their press release for more information. AltaVista Review updated. Feb. 3, 2000: My March 2000 Internet Search Engine Update is now available on the Online Web site. Feb. 2, 2000: Excite announced today that its Web database now includes 250 million Web pages and multimedia items. If verified, this marks a major increase in size. Excite Search built its database from "an initial database of over 920 million visited Web pages." New Google inconsistency added to the Google inconsistencies page. LookSmart has joined Yahoo! in offering a $199 express submission service. alt.internet.search-engines and Pandia Post added to the Search Engine Lists page. Feb. 1, 2000: AltaVista announces a new affiliate program. Despite some reports, it is not offering its search technology or code as open source technology like Linux. Instead, through its affiliate program, it offers new ways of putting an AltaVista search box on a Web page.
Jan. 28, 2000: Jan. 27, 2000: The HotLinks Guide has launched, composed of bookmark files from its participants. Claiming over 3 million unique links, HotLinks also provides storage space for individuals' bookmark files. They can be kept private or made public. For those that are public, HotLinks offers a fascinating peek into others' bookmarking habits and choices. Given the nature of bookmark files, do not be surprised if some links have moved or died. Jan. 25, 2000: Ask Jeeves is buying Direct Hit. Read the Ask Jeeves press release. This should be interesting to see how they might combine some of their technologies. AltaVista is establishing a Business Solutions Group to market AltaVista technologies to the Business to Business, portal, and corporate markets. The big announcement is coming next week, but there is already information up on the AltaVista site under Business Solutions. It makes for some interesting reading. For example, did you know that Amazon.com uses AltaVista technology? Jan. 24, 2000: About.com has announced the acquisition of ExpertCentral.com. Read the press release. Jan. 19, 2000: Intelliseek has moved BullsEye 2 out of beta, and it is still free. BullsEye Pro 2 is $149 and adds tracking, customized news-clipping technology, and advanced filtering. Read their Press Release. Multiple search engines page updated.
Jan. 18, 2000:
Inktomi, in conjunction with the NEC Research Institute, released some information from a study of total Web size. Inktomi has built a database, WebMap, of one billion documents and that number was verified by NEC. However, while the page states Top of the page for the site has been redesigned and will slowly promulgate throughout the site. Jan. 17, 2000: Fast has a new database with 300 million pages indexed. See the Fast Special Supplementary Study for more details. Also, added pages for comparison methodology, Why size matters, and more. Updated Fast review to reflect new size, availability of Fast on Lycos Pro, and added statistics information to the Relative Size, Total Size Estimates, and main statistics pages. Added two new books to the search engines readings page: The latest issue of Showdown News has been sent out to subscribers. The Web edition is available under the archive listing. Jan. 16, 2000: Updated Lycos review to reflect new advanced search features and database. Apparently, the advanced search, known as Lycos Pro, now uses the Fast database and advanced search features. Try a search on it and note the "Portions powered by Fast" statement on the bottom. It finds the exact same hits that Fast on All the Web retrieves. Updated links to AltaVista Press Releases and remove the exact count capability which used to be available in the advanced search (even though it did not work). Infoseek review updated to mention availability of advanced search and display changes. Search Engine Chart and By Feature pages also updated to reflect changes, with Lycos and Lycos Pro separated. Jan. 15, 2000: Updated site to reflect new URL of searchengineshowdown.com (notess.com/search still works as well). Google review updated to note the addition of the RealNames database.
Jan. 13, 2000:
Back to updating the search engine news! Intelliseek now has BullsEye 2 available in beta on its site, and it is free.
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