Google can’t get no satisfaction
August 14, 2007
For the second consecutive year, Google has slipped in the rankings of a US consumer satisfaction survey. This year they’ve slipped so far they actually come below Yahoo!
According to the American Consumer Satisfaction Index, Yahoo’s customer satisfaction score rose by 4% to 79, while Google fell by 3.7% to 78. Other search engines measured in the rankings were Ask.com, which posted the biggest increase to score 75, making it equal with MSN.com. AOL dropped by 9% to record a satisfaction score of 67, making it the biggest loser in the survey.
Foresee Results who run the survey said that it is an indicator of the financial success of a business in the wider marketplace and reckon that the next year could show a turnaround for Yahoo. Music to Jerry Yang’s ears I’m sure, they could do with some new found success!
Search engine privacy laid bare
August 14, 2007
In a rare move, CNet News has managed to get frank explanations of privacy policies from the major search engines AOL, Ask.com, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft.
CNet sent the engines a survey and the responses are published here.
Social crowd sourced search results
July 24, 2007
A new search engine has launched to not much fanfare and pretty stealthily called iRazoo. It’s interesting to me as it’s doing a similar thing to Mahalo in that it’s using the input of users to qualify search results.
Rather than go down the Mahalo route where specialists are paid to put together search results, iRazoo is allowing users to recommend a search result while they are surfing. When users click a search result it’s opened in a new window, this could annoy a lot of users as pop-ups (even user activated) are generally a no-no these days. That’s purely a user interface issue though and I’m sure they will change it if they get enough feedback requesting it. There’s a bar across the top of the new window asking whether you recommend the site and allowing comments to be left as well.
As an incentive users are able to earn points for their recommendations. However you need many thousands of points to get any meaningful prizes (camera or mp3 player) and so it could take quite some time.
It’s an interesting concept and one that could work quite well if it was designed with the user in mind. At the moment it’s a fairly clunky and unwieldy process with the pop-up windows and the bar across the resulting websites. A few small changes could fix that though and a bit of usability testing, and they may need to do this to gain traction with users.
Of course, it is possible to game the site a little by recommending your own websites, but I’m sure (or at least hope) they will have thought of that. If they can gain the much needed traffic and signed up members then it should even itself out anyway.
The idea of the ‘crowd’ providing intelligence to search results is a great one and in my opinion beats the Mahalo idea of specialists. Crowd wisdom is a far better way to measure the value of something and as such this could have potential with a little better execution.
Microsoft Live Search catching up?
July 11, 2007
So Compete is saying that Microsoft Live search has grown massively in the last month in the number of searches and users it’s accommodating. They have increased the volume of queries by 67% from May to June and by 48% from the same time last year. Good going! Pretty impressive growth rates I hear you cry.
I thought that until I dug a little deeper and discovered via Marketing Charts that Live search has been running a promotion where users play games in return for tickets they can collect towards free gifts. All the games played involve the use of the Live.com search engine so it’s easy to see how this growth has occurred.
The prizes are worth having too, and with reports of users running bots against the games to speed up the winning of prizes it does make me wonder if this is a last gasp effort by Microsoft to get some revenue from search marketing (both for themselves and for advertisers) to try to impress.
I can’t see Google or even Yahoo quaking in their boots about the growth figures now…
Crowd wisdom helps South Korean web searchers
July 5, 2007
Human powered search engines are all the rage with the launch of Mahalo one of the most talked about launches this year. However it turns out that the South Koreans have been doing this right for some time!
Naver a South Korean based search engine is storming along and has claimed to be handling 77% of all South Korean web searches. What really puts that figure into perspective is the fact that Google only handle 1.7%. Now of course the reason Google is so low is mainly to do with the lack of Korean language results, but there is another reason Naver does so well.
Relevancy and accuracy. Two things that Google desperately tries to do but can never guarantee as it’s machine led intelligence driving the thing.
Naver is human lead. It works in a similar way to Yahoo Answers where humans answer your search queries. This must bode well for Mahalo as their business model is very similar.
Great article in the New York Times on Naver today here.
Google’s Webmaster Central blog has an interesting post detailing their position with regards to the practice of creating startpages. Startpages are webpages with a lot of links about a specific topic. The startpages are hosted on a startpage domain and each separate startpage is maintained by an individual webmaster. The links on startpages are usually ordered by categories related to the topic of the page.
Great! They’re useful starting points on the web containing a load of links and content relevant to what you are looking for.
But, can this practice be misused to spam search engines? Yes, of course it can. Create yourself a load of startpages with links into your own websites and services, make them keyword rich and highly optimised for search engine crawlers. There you go, a load of doorway pages which don’t sit on your own domain and therefore don’t get looked on as SEO spam.
A winning formula for unethical SEO’s everywhere. This practice already exists and I’m amazed that Google hasn’t taken the opportunity to frown upon this practice in this article on their blog! They do mention that link farms are against their guidelines, but no mention of whether they’ll be looking to filter them out or not.
Most savvy web folk will know better than to try that, but there are bound to be some who will see Google’s endorsement of startpages as a sign that they can try some less ethical practices to gain traffic and SEO link equity.
Crazy libel action against Google
July 3, 2007
Madness I tell you!
Google has had a defamation action raised against it by a London based businessman who owns a domain registrar. This landmark legal action seeks to hold Google liable for publishing inaccurate, malicious or damaging material on the web.
It’s the first case of it’s kind in the UK that seeks to make a search engine responsible for the content on the web. If successful it could trigger massive restrictions on the freedom of information online.
The case states that the search engine directed users to web pages that the domain registrar claims contain “deeply offensive and commercially damaging” material about their business.
Various postings on forums etc accuse the registrar dotWorlds of cashing in on the September 11th attacks by offering free registration of domain names to U.S. businesses and users in a way that took advantage of the patriotism at the time. In other postings, they are accused of conducting fraudulent business.
Since 2003, the owner of the registrar claims that Google has removed various posts to its own discussion groups at his request, but its search engine continues to turn up links to offensive third-party sites. If Google doesn’t give him a written promise to permanently remove the links, he plans to sue them.
Google would be protected by the first amendment if the action was in the U.S. but in the UK it’s not yet been seen if internet companies have the same protection.
If the the suit is successful, it could have widespread consequences – not just for search engines but for all sorts of other internet service providers that link to third-party content.
Crazy! I can understand Google having to remove content on it’s own groups etc but to have to police the content of web pages that they have control over is madness. Imagine the filtering they’d have to put in place and after everyone else with a libel issue filed suit it would become an unmanageable task.
I sincerely hope this isn’t successful. The domain registrar in question should seek to prove the claims as inaccurate and use that to their advantage to quash all libellous talk rather than trying to ruin the freedom that the internet gives us all.
Google still top of the search engines and climbing
June 27, 2007
Google has retained its status as the top search engine in the US, logging more than half of all search queries last month.
comScore recorded 7.6 billion search queries in May, 3.9 billion of which were made from Google, giving the search engine a 50.7% market share.
That’s a one per cent increase from April, when Google claimed a 49.7% market share, and an increase of more than three per cent since the start of 2007.
Google was also the only search engine among the top five to gain market share last month. Yahoo saw its market share drop from 26.8% to 26.4%. Microsoft remained static at 10.3%
A day without Google!
June 12, 2007
Okay, take a look at the posts below and you’ll see I haven’t gone a day without… Altsearchengines, a blog aiming to encourage users to step outside the top 5 engines comfort zone is encouraging users not to use the big 5 today.
Their rules:
1. All day Tuesday, June 12th, don’t use any of the 5 major search engines.
2. Avoid Meta search engines, since most of them include the major search engines. (for this day only! Meta search engines are important; see the Great Debate Tuesday night!)
3. Likewise, the specialized vertical search engines may be too narrowly focused. (for this day only. It’s the vertical search engines that usually search the best; within their niche.)
4. Consider changing your homepage or downloading their toolbar. You can always uninstall everything and change back on Wednesday.
5. On Wednesday, leave a detailed comment under this post and share your experience with the rest of us. Which alt search engine did you chose? How would you rate the experience? (if you want to comment go here)
So if you’re looking for an alternative here’s the top 100:
50matches.com [HM] www.50matches.com
Accoona www.accoona.com
AfterVote {SEM} www.aftervote.com
Agent 55 www.agent55.com
Allth.at www.allth.at
Answers.com www.answers.com
Audiobaba www.audiobaba.com
Blabline www.blabline.com
blinkx www.blinkx.com
Blogdigger [HM] www.blogdigger.com
Bookmach www.bookmach.com
btbot www.btbot.com
CatchTomorrow www.catchtomorrow.com
ChaCha {#1 2006} www.chacha.com
ClipBlast! www.clipblast.com
Cognitionsearch www.cognitionsearch.com
Collarity www.collarity.com
Compete www.compete.com
Congoo www.congoo.com
CrossEngine www.crossengine.com
Cydral en.cydral.com
Decipho www.decipho.com
Deligio [HM] www.deligio.com
eTools.ch www.etools.ch
Exalead www.exalead.com
Factbites www.factbites.com
Faroo faroo.com
FeedMiner www.feedminer.com
Feedster ww.feedster.com
FindSounds [HM] www.findsounds.com
Fisssh! www.fisssh.com
FyberSearch www.fybersearch.com
GameSkoot www.gameskoot.com
GenieKnows (Games) www.genieknows.com
Gigablast www.gigablast.com
GoPubMed www.gopubmed.com
GoshMe {SEM} www.goshme.com
gravee www.gravee.com
Grokker www.grokker.com
Hakia www.hakia.com
Healthline www.healthline.com
iBoogie www.iboogie.com
Icerocket www.icerocket.com
indeed www.indeed.com
ixquick [HM] www.ixquick.com
KartOO *SEM* (tie) www.kartoo.com
Knuru www.knuru.com
KoolTorch {SEM} www.kooltorch.com
Kosmix [HM] www.kosmix.com
Krugle www.krugle.com
Ktorrents www.ktorrents.com
lijit [HM] www.lijit.com
Like www.like.com
LivePlasma www.liveplasma.com
Mojeek www.mojeek.com
MP3Realm mp3realm.org
Ms. Freckles www.msfreckles.com/?lang=en
Nayio www.nayio.com
nnseek www.nnseek.com
Nutshell www.nutshell.com
Omgili www.omgili.com
Pagebull www.pagebull.com
Picsearch www.picsearch.com
Pipl pipl.com
Pixsy www.pixsy.com
Pluggd www.pluggd.com
Podnova www.podnova.com
Podzinger www.podzinger.com
Purevideo www.purevideo.com
Quintura *SEM* (tie) www.quintura.com
Quintura Kids kids.quintura.com
Revolutionhealth www.revolutionhealth.com
Searchbots www.searchbots.net
SearchKindly www.searchkindly.com
Searchles www.searchles.com
SearchTheWeb2 www.searchtheweb2.com
SeeIt [HM] www.seeit.com
Serph www.serph.com
Sidekiq www.sidekiq.com
Simply Google www.simplygoogle.com
Simplyhired www.simplyhired.com
Slifter www.slifter.com
Sphere www.sphere.com
Sproose [HM] www.sproose.com
Srchr www.srchr.com
Sugarcode www.sugarcode.com
Surfwax www.surfwax.com
Swamii www.swamii.com
TheFind.com www.thefind.com
Trexy www.trexy.com
Turboscout www.turboscout.com
Twerq www.twerq.com
ViewFour www.viewfour.com
WasaLive en.wasalive.com
Wazap! www.wazap.com
Whonu? [HM] www.whonu.com
WiseNut www.wisenut.com
Wize wize.com
Yoople! www.yoople.com
Zuula www.zuula.com
Google to hold data for 18 months
June 12, 2007
In a concession to the EU commission over data protection, Google has announced that they will only hold customer data for 18 months, after that period the server logs will become anonymous. The policy shift was flagged up in a letter sent to the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party in Brussels on Sunday by Peter Fleischer, Google’s global privacy counsel.
It’s a quick response that won’t hurt Googles ability to provide innovative tools and services and hopefully will help to put the privacy issue to bed for a while.
