Michael Wong

Google launches desktop search

Google recently announced Google Desktop Search (GDS), a beta desktop search application that enables users to search their email, files, web history, and chats as fast as they can search the web with Google.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to test drive it yet. The problem is when I tried to install on my PC, it asked me to uninstall a number of programs that conflicted with GDS. I had to reinstall the programs after I had completed installing GDS. This was one of those cases of "too much effort - not enough reward". So I gave up on GDS, for now anyway.

GDS is currently available for Windows XP and Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 and above. It requires a minimum of 128MB of RAM, and a 400MHz (or faster) Pentium processor is recommended. Google Desktop Search is available in English today, but there are plans to make it available in other languages.

Search Engines 2 launches

I've just launched Search Engines 2, a new directory that offers over 12,500 links to local, regional, national, and foreign internet search engines, web directories, pay per click search engines and meta search engines. General users can use it to find what you're looking for on the web. Webmasters and search engine marketers can use it to find search engines and directories that offer free or paid web site submissions and advertising. For more information, visit Search-Engines-2.com.

Amazon.com Launches Search Engine

Amazon.com launches A9.com, a search engine which displays search results powered by Google. A9 also includes Amazon's Search Inside The Book program, Alexa site information, and search and click history.

Yahoo! Buys European Shopping Comparison Engine, Kelkoo

Yahoo! is ramping up its European presence, by splashing out 475 million euros (about $575 million) for price-comparison Web site Kelkoo. The new acquisition will boost Yahoo's online shopping offering and open up new revenue streams through Kelkoo's lead referral scheme and other marketing initiatives. Kelkoo operates in nine countries across Europe and reaches nearly 10 percent of Internet users in the continent, offering price comparisons on electrical goods, CDs, books and cars. [Full story: Yahoo acquires Kelkoo - ZDNet UK]

The End for AllTheWeb & AltaVista

Search results on AllTheWeb and AltaVista will soon be powered by Yahoo! Search Technology. It looks like the end for AltaVista and AllTheWeb, as we know it.

39% of Americans Use a Search Engine

Nielsen//NetRatings reports that 114.5 million or 39 percent of Americans, representing 76 percent of the active online U.S. population, used a search engine during January 2004. The top five search destinations were Google, Yahoo! Search, MSN Search, AOL Search and Ask Jeeves. Fifty-nine million users or 39 percent of active Internet users visited Google. Thirty percent or 46 million visitors used Yahoo! Search, while 45 million or 30 percent went to MSN Search. Rounding out the top five were AOL Search and Ask Jeeves with 23 million and 13 million unique users respectively. [Full story: One in Three Americans Use a Search Engine - Nielsen//NetRatings]

Google Launches Local Search

Google Inc. today announced the integration of local search results into Google.com with the availability of Google Local. This new feature enables users to find relevant local information with neighborhood business listings, maps, directions, and useful web pages. Today, Google Local connects users to U.S.-based local information. The company plans to include local information for international markets in the coming months. [Press release: Google Connects Searchers With Local Information - Google]

Ask Jeeves Buys The Excite Network

Ask Jeeves is paying $343 million for a family of popular Web sites that includes Excite.com, iWon.com, and Myway.com. Interactive Search — better known as The Excite Network — ran the 12th busiest group of Web sites in January, attracting a total of 23.8 million unique visitors. Ask Jeeves ranked as the 26th most popular destination with 15.6 million unique visitors. Based on the combined audience of 39 million, Ask Jeeves' collection of Web sites would become the eighth most popular properties on the Internet, ranking just ahead of Amazon.com. Just as importantly to Ask Jeeves, the Interactive Search properties processed 700 million search requests during the fourth quarter, slightly more than the 680 million search queries handled by Ask Jeeves. Based on those figures, Ask Jeeves' share of the search market should climb to about 7%. [Full story: Ask.com to pay $343 million for Interactive Search - USA Today]

Google's Search Index Tops Six Billion Items

Google Inc. today announced it expanded its web index to more than 6 billion items, comprising of 4.28 billion web pages, 880 million images, 845 million Usenet messages, and a collection of book-related information pages. [Press release: Google Achieves Search Milestone With Immediate Access To More Than 6 Billion Items - Google]

Yahoo! Drops Google Search Results

Yahoo has given the boot to longtime partner Google. Yahoo said its move to integrate results from its own algorithmic search tools is just the first step in what it promises will be an ongoing rollout of new search features, ranging from personalization to localized search results. The new search platform pulls together technology from Inktomi, which Yahoo owns, as well as AllTheWeb and AltaVista, which were owned by Overture before Yahoo bought that company last year. Yahoo said the changeover means its technology will be responsible for more than half of all searches conducted in the United States. [Full story: Search Wars Heat Up as Yahoo Drops Google - Ecommerce Times]

Google Tests Book Search Service

Google has introduced Google Print, a book search system. On these pages, Google provide links to some popular book sellers that may offer the full versions of these publications for sale. Book seller links are not paid for by those sites, nor does Google benefit if you make a purchase from one of these retailers. In addition, these pages show contextually-targeted AdWords ads that are served through the Google AdSense program. During the initial phase of this beta test, advertisers will not be charged for clicks they receive on these pages, and neither Google nor the publishers profit from these ads. The Google Print service is open to qualified publishers, authors, and agents. To be considered for the program, complete this contact form.

AOL Extends Google Search Deal

America Online extended its relationship with Google on Tuesday, reiterating its commitment to use the company for algorithmic and paid search results. The companies extended their agreement, first signed in April 2002, for an unspecified number of years. AOL has been conducting tests with AdSense for roughly two months and has other plans to work with Google on targeted content strategies. [Full story: AOL expands Google search pact - CNET News]

Amazon.com to Compete With Google's Froogle Comparison Shopping Engine

Amazon.com plans to spin off a subsidiary to invest and develop their own e-commerce search engine. A9, the new Amazon.com subsidiary, will officially launch in October with approximately 30 employees. The goal is to invent and develop the best e-commerce search technology for the Amazon.com Web site and to license to third-party firms as well. This will put Amazon.com in direct competition with Google's Froogle comparison shopping engine. [Full story: Amazon.com Takes Aim at Google - Internet News]

Yahoo! Launches New Comparison Shopping Search Engine

Yahoo! have launched a revamped Yahoo! Shopping search engine. The new product search engine utilizes algorithmic search technology to extract results from 3 sources, including Yahoo!'s existing database of more than 17,000 merchants, a new database of merchants via direct datafeeds that pay for each click through, and merchants and products discovered by the Inktomi crawler. Yahoo! Shopping now features side-by-side price and feature comparison, expert and consumer reviews, buyer's guides, calculated shipping and tax costs, product specifications, and merchant information from well-known retailers to specialty stores. [Press release: Yahoo! Introduces Product Search - Yahoo!]

Yahoo! Testing Inktomi In Australia

Yahoo! is testing Inktomi's search engine in Australia with a view to replacing Google. This is the strongest indication yet that it will dump Google. Yahoo! has started testing Inktomi's search engine in parallel with projects at a number of Yahoo!'s regional portals to see if it provides a viable alternative to Google. Yahoo Australia is reluctant to put a firm time-frame on its plans should Inktomi pass relevance testing saying that they would be carried out in the "medium-term." [Full story: Yahoo considers spurning Google for Inktomi - ZDNet UK]

LookSmart to Provide Web Search and Paid Inclusion on Lycos

LookSmart on Wednesday announced a multiyear search agreement with Terra Lycos to provide Web search and paid inclusion on the Lycos portal. Under terms of the deal, LookSmart will provide search results for commercial terms beginning in the third quarter. Lycos will also have the option to sell LookSmart's paid inclusion product, LookListings, through its InSite search-marketing program. [Full story: LookSmart Inks Search Deal with Lycos - Internet News]

Microsoft's 'Nobel Prize' Mathematicians Versus Google's Army of PhDs - Let The Battle Begin!

Microsoft has hired top scientists in its quest for search algorithms that will allow it to compete directly with Google, according to the head of the company's Theory Group. Microsoft is patenting new search algorithms with the goal of replacing the Inktomi technology currently powering MSN search with Microsoft's own. Microsoft last month launched a new search program called MSNBot, which trawls the Web to build an index of HTML links and documents--functions previously left to Inktomi and other partners. That's led to speculation that Microsoft plans to take on Google more directly in the search business. Microsoft's research team consists of some notable mathematicians, including Laszlo Lovasz, a winner of the Wolf Medal, one of the world's leading mathematics prizes, and a former Yale University professor. Others in the eight-strong permanent team have won the Field Medal, mathematics' equivalent of the Nobel Prize. They're up against Google's 60 PhDs, so the battle should get interesting! [Full story: Microsoft brains take on Google - CNET News]

Open Directory Project Testing Public Abuse Report System

The Open Directory Project (ODP) is testing a new system to allow anyone to report suspected abuse by editors more committed to their own self interest than the general good of the project. Compiled by a global legion of more than 50,000 volunteers, the ODP relies on the honor system to assure the integrity of editors and the listings they maintain. Unfortunately, there have been numerous reports over the years of editors promoting their own sites, or demoting or deleting competitor sites. The senior editors have made efforts to monitor and constrain this subversive behavior, but complaints have persisted. In response, the ODP has launched a new Public Abuse Report System that allows any ODP user to report suspicions of abusive editors/conduct to DMOZ meta editors and staff. [Full story: ODP Testing Public Abuse Report System - Search Engine Watch]

Lycos & Bizrate Launch Shopping Site

Terra Lycos today launched a new shopping search site, that combines Lycos' search technology with BizRate.com comparison shopping tools. The service lets consumers find the best deal by quickly checking more than 32,000 online stores. The site covers a vast range of products including electronics, books, clothing, toys, games, and music. Live help is also available for shoppers. [Full story: Lycos, Bizrate Launch Shopping Site - Internet News]

Google Signs Up Ask Jeeves UK

Ask Jeeves announced on Friday that Google has replaced Espotting as the paid-listing provider for its UK subsidiary, giving the search leader a key distribution outlet abroad. The two-year deal calls for Google to provide the top three listings on results page of the Ask Jeeves UK search engine, under the heading "Websites I can show you." (The listings will be labeled as sponsored.) The two companies will split the revenues generated from advertisers' paying each time a user clicks on their listings. Ask Jeeves said it selected Google over both Espotting and Overture Services. Espotting signed a paid-listing deal with Ask Jeeves UK 18 months ago. Both Espotting and Overture will remain in Ask Jeeves UK's meta search results, at the bottom of the page. [Full story: Google Signs Up Ask Jeeves UK - Internet News]

OneStat: Google Is #1 Search Engine With 55.2% Global Usage

OneStat.com today reported that Google has a global average usage share of 55.2 percent during the last 2 months, making it the most popular search engine on the web. The 7 largest search engines on the web are Google (55.2%), Yahoo (21.7%), MSN Search (9.6%), AOL Search (3.8%), Terra Lycos (2.6%), Altavista (2.2%), and Askjeeves (1.5%). Research is based on a sample of 2 million visitors divided into 20,000 visitors of 100 countries each day. [Full story: Search engine ratings: Google 55.2 percent global usage share according to OneStat.com - OneStat]

Overture to Introduce Paid Inclusion and Contextual Marketing Within 3 Months

Overture Services said it would release its paid inclusion and contextual marketing offerings in the next three months. The announcement came at the company's annual presentation for financial analysts. Overture has embarked on overhauling the company to be a one-stop provider of a variety of search services, including algorithmic search, analytics, paid inclusion and contextual advertising. Unlike paid listings, where a client is guaranteed placement on the results page, paid inclusion advertisers pay to have their Web pages crawled during a search. Contextual ads are served on content pages next to relevant text. Overure's paid inclusion offering will be a hybrid of the paid inclusion technologies from Overture's two major search acquisitions earlier this year, Alta Vista and the search unit of FAST Search and Transfer. The two units will offer their paid inclusion products separately until then. In addition, Overture is at work on a local search product, to be released by the end of the year, that will allow advertisers to target customers in a geographic area. [Full story: Overture Readies New Search Products - Internet News]

comScore Networks' qSearch to Measure Consumer Search Activity Across All Major Search Engines

comScore Networks today announced the launch of comScore Media Metrix qSearch(TM), a system to track and report consumers’ distinct search queries across 25 major search engines and portals. qSearch data and analysis should help drive better business decisions for search providers, marketers and agencies, and financial analysts. qSearch is based on the comScore Global Network, which continuously and confidentially captures the complete Internet activity -- including search engine queries -- of a representative cross-section of more than 1.5 million global Internet users.

The Open Directory Updates Its Index

The Open Directory index, a popular web directory used by Google, AOL/Netscape, Lycos and many other search engines, has been updated. The DMOZ RDF (Resource Description Framework) files were last updated on April 24, 2003. If you've submitted a web site recently and it has been accepted, it should appear within the index.

LookSmart Looking to Crawl Every Page on the Web Every Day

LookSmart in January acquired Grub.org, which relies on the power of individuals' personal computers to search Web pages when their computers are idle. Juiced with their computing power, Grub sends results back to LookSmart to let it know whether a page on a site has been updated, added, or been expunged. The technique, called distributed computing, to search or crawl the Web is similar to that employed in the screen saver offered by SETI.org, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. This academic endeavor relies on volunteers to sign on and agree to let their idle computers filter radio signals from outer space in the pursuit of signals from intelligent life. LookSmart explains that distributed crawling technology enables them to get the community and Internet users to pitch in and help build a huge search index. Their goal is to be able to crawl every page on the Web every day, eventually creating a central registry of all Web addresses. [Full story: Human power helps build search index - Oakland Tribune]

Ask Jeeves Introduces New Version of Ask.com

Ask Jeeves introduced a new version of its search engine offering a streamlined interface and several new features. Ask Jeeves Smart Search includes Smart Answers, popular subjects, pictures search, news, related search, clarification tools, and spell check.

Overture to Enter 7 New International Markets in 2003

Overture Services today announced that it has expanded its European headquarters in Ireland, initiating its previously announced plan to enter at least seven new markets across Europe and Asia in 2003. Overture will continue its international growth later this month when the company launches its commercial search service in South Korea. In addition, Overture plans to expand into Italy later in the second quarter, followed by Austria, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and Scandinavia before the end of the year. [Press release: Overture Kicks Off 2003 International Expansion; New Search Services Center in Ireland Strengthens Company's Market Leadership Position - Overture]

Yahoo! Planning to Acquire Overture?

In a posting yesterday, I posed the question, "Is Overture Ripe for Takeover?" [post no longer available] Today, TheStreet.com asked the question, "Is Yahoo! making an overture for Overture Services?" This came about after Yahoo!'s late-night announcement Thursday that it had priced $750 million in convertible bonds. Yahoo! has $1.5 billion in cash on hand and generated $221 million in free cash flow in 2002. They wouldn't appear to require more cash unless it were about to make a major acquisition. And that scenario has led some to speculate that the likeliest suspect for Yahoo! to acquire is Overture. The mystery deepens... [Full story: Overture Jumps as Yahoo! Grabs Cash - TheStreet.com]

Microsoft to Attack the Google Kingdom

Microsoft said it is taking aim at Google. "We do view Google more and more as a competitor. We believe that we can provide consumers with a better product and a better user experience. That's something that we're actively looking at doing," said Bob Visse, director of marketing for Microsoft's MSN Internet services division. Visse said the company was making some significant investments in developing a better search engine. But the company has not offered specific plans. [Full story: Microsoft Covets Google's Niche - Wired News]

Microsoft Agrees to Acquire Google for $6.4 Billion

Microsoft has agreed to acquire Google, a privately held company that provides search services for search engines and web portals, for $6.4 billion the software maker has announced. Microsoft plans to use the acquisition to beef up its MSN web search service. Its mission will be to expand the MSN portal's range of online services, the company said in a statement. The unit will be part of Microsoft's MSN Network, which offers internet services to 175 million users. Google and Microsoft expect to complete the transaction in the second quarter. [Full story: Microsoft Acquires Google for $6.4 Billion - Wall Street Journal]

Google Offers Expert Search Tips

Google offers expert search tips to help you make better use of Google and find what you're searching for. For most Google searches, simply typing what you want to find does the job. If you want to refine your search, however, these suggestions from Google's quality team may help. [Web page: Building a better query - Google]

Big Sites Lining Up to Sell Google PageRank?

Here's an interesting discussion about a major web site selling direct text links, which some people think is another way of selling Google PageRank ratings -- Looking at the FoxNews website, I noticed peculiar looking links on the front page under the "advertising links." Many of these are direct links to business sites. One can look at them two ways. Fox is selling PageRank or they are, in fact, just selling small text link ads. My gut tells me more is going on here than just selling text ads. For one thing, there's one link there that says - "Buy This Link" The wording on that raises eyebrows. Also notice that the second link in the left column has a PR7 thanks to Fox's PR8. However, only 14 backlinks show up for that site. There are more examples of this among those links. According to the company that is selling these links, and it is listed among them as 2 different but similar urls, links are being sold for $500 to $5,000. However, that company has a Gray Bar on both of its sites. Maybe Fox is not intentionally selling PageRank, but this company which is contracting the sales of these links know what they are doing when they are selling these links. [Discussion thread: A PR8 site selling pagerank? - WebmasterWorld]

Google Signs Top Korean Portal, Daum

Google has signed a deal with South Korea's Daum Communications to provide algorithmic search services for the portal, Daum.net, beginning as early as next week. The deal means Daum, which is Korea's top portal, decided to split its search business down the middle, partnering with Google rival Overture Services in a three-year exclusive paid-listings deal two months ago. Daum.net is a sprawling portal, with more than 2 million online communities and 20 million registered users -- accounting for nearly 80 percent of all Korean Internet users. South Korea represents a huge market opportunity, as possibly the most technologically oriented Asian country, with a 40 percent broadband penetration rate. [Full story: Google Signs Search Deal With Top Korean Portal - InternetNews]

Espotting Denies Yahoo Takeover Talk

European Internet firm Espotting Media shot down on Friday a report it is in talks to sell out to U.S. Internet portal Yahoo Inc.. The report in a U.S. newspaper sent shares in Espotting's biggest rival, American firm Overture Services Inc., down 12 percent as investors feared Overture's biggest customer, Yahoo, would become its biggest competitor. The report on Friday said Yahoo was close to purchasing Espotting, but the privately held firm quickly denied this.

Dealtime to Acquire Epinions

DealTime Ltd., a leading online shopping search engine, today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Epinions, a leading online consumer reviews and ratings platform. DealTime will augment its advanced search technology and shopping tools with Epinions’ consumer reviews and ratings. Epinions’ content will broaden the information available for shoppers and further increase conversion to sale for merchants. DealTime will continue to operate the DealTime.com and Epinions.com websites, as well as its co-branded sites, while leveraging both companies’ merchant relationships and distribution partners.

Google to Provide Web Search and Targeted Sponsored Links to Walt Disney Web Sites

Walt Disney Internet Group, and Google, developer of the largest performance-based search advertising program, today announced an agreement through which Google will provide several Disney web properties with Google's search technology and highly relevant sponsored links. Google's web-wide search results and sponsored links are available now to Go.com visitors. Additionally, Google will power site-specific searches and provide sponsored links on Disney.com, Movies.com and FamilyFun.com beginning in the Spring. [Press release: Google to Provide Web Search and Targeted Sponsored Links to Walt Disney Internet Group Web Properties - Google]

Data Mining Software Trawls for ‘Word Bursts’ on Internet

Computer scientist Jon Kleinberg is taking a virtual stroll down the information superhighway, surfing cyberspace for verbal megatrends. Kleinberg uses algorithms to identify sudden jumps in the use of words, offering a glimpse into the mechanics of language evolution — what makes a word hot, or not. Kleinberg’s software looks at data without being given a keyword and reports back on significant topics.