Slashdot Mirror

Actually 20984222 people a month use Yahoo to find Google.

I switched to http://ixquick.com/ which does not keep records.

I switched to http://ixquick.com/ which does not keep records.

That is Yahoo!'s style of advertising. Yahoo! bought Overture, the company which invented text advertising on web pages. Google merely took Overture's model and applied it to market areas where Overture wouldn't go.

Of course, to those who think Yahoo! is nothing more than a hideous portal site, that's a normal reaction.

I didn't RTFA, but from the comments it sounds like I've read hundreds like it and it's preaching the "content is king" dogma. And that's pretty true. All you have to do is build a good site that people want to visit and you're halfway there. Unfortunately people just try to build a site with the "coolest" flash and spend time and money on the latest SE spam techniques.

So I agree with rakerman in that building a site on a topic you enjoy with interesting content is half the battle. You keep up with it, update it, and people will naturally link to it (links being the other half).

SEO actually seems to be getting easier in a sense. The complicated cloaking and doorway pages are much less effective on the major keyphrases than they used to be. You'll still see plenty of scrapper sites rank high in the major SEs, but the trend is against them.

If you're interested in Search Engine Optimization, the tool can be used like the Overture Keyword Selector Tool. Similar results are obtained with both, which is interesting all in itself. A guy built an interface similar to Overture to use with Google Suggest.

Other than that I can't think of a real use... I usually know what I want to search for on Google. It could help optimize queries I guess (see the "number" of results before hitting submit, but not the quality...)

Happy Holidays to all Slashdotters, by the way :)

Dunno about about the search engine angle but as an advertiser I'd suggest that Google was successful because their Adwords program was

1. Cheap
2. Very, very, very easy to use

1. Expensive
2. A pig to use

http://www.altavista.com/about/

"AltaVista, a business of Overture Services, Inc..."

http://www.content.overture.com/d/

"Overture products are now Yahoo! Search Marketing products..."

So, it's theirs anyway :)

There is a LOT of money on the line here.

There is a LOT of money on the line here.

Although many potential customers might wonder how good a company is if it can't rank near the top with its own term, Boser says he wouldn't want to show up high in search engine optimization as a keyword. It gives your company too much visibility (Read: makes it a bigger target.)

Why, then, does he have the top listing on Overture for "search engine optimization," paying $5.06 per clickthrough?

I'm not sure Yahoo wants to implement an AdSense-like program. Is anyone else expecting some big blowout in regard to AdSense in the near future? The system appears (to me) to be so rife with fraud with Google having no idea how to combat it. Every monkey that knows how to spell "mesothelioma" is setting up a site hoping to cash in on the high cost per click.

The costs per click used to be very high but as more and more scammers jump on board using various anonymous proxy servers to initiate fake clicks, the costs per click are plummeting pretty rapidly.

To see various costs per click on Overture (you can't see Google's AdSense exact amounts) go to Overture Cost Per Click.

While almost all the other .com's were .bombing, Yahoo very quietly amassed an enormous portfolio of once high-flying search engines [on pennies to the dollar, compared to their pre-crash values]:

Altavista
AllTheWeb
Inktomi
Overture
etc...

Have you noticed that the sponsored sites that the MSN search results shows come from Overture? isn't it a service from Yahoo?

Have you noticed that the sponsored sites that the MSN search results shows come from Overture? isn't it a service from Yahoo?

Go Here.

Type in mesothelioma, and the captcha code, then click Search.

Yes? Then go to yahoo search or whatever, and do like you always do.
Help out to do your part! You can make a difference and help to make the lawyers and jews to pay for their crimes.

Go Here.

Type in mesothelioma, and the captcha code, then click Search.

Yes? Then go to yahoo search or whatever, and do like you always do.
Help out to do your part! You can make a difference and help to make the lawyers and jews to pay for their crimes.

If you're interested in Search Engine Optimization, the tool can be used like the Overture Keyword Selector Tool. Similar results are obtained with both, which is interesting all in itself. A guy built an interface similar to Overture to use with Google Suggest.

Other than that I can't think of a real use... I usually know what I want to search for on Google. It could help optimize queries I guess (see the "number" of results before hitting submit, but not the quality...)

Happy Holidays to all Slashdotters, by the way :)

Compare Windows and Linux Servers Windows outperforms Linux: Industry case studies and test lab results provide insight into the advantages of the Microsoft® Windows® platform. Read the independent analysis now. www.microsoft.com

The company seeks to distinguish itself from Google, Yahoo Inc. and growing list of other search engine players by using artificial intelligence to make the results more relevant, said Pfeiffer.

There's some humor in this statement in that Accoona seems to be using Overture for at least its sponsored results. One example. But then, most modern "competitors" of Google and Yahoo seem to fall back on the technology of one or the other to some degree.

First 5 results are sponsored links it appears.. "sponsored results" link to this page: http://www.content.overture.com/d/USm/ays/bjump/. So unless you want to pay to have your site on top, I bet it won't get there at first.

I was going to say, if it were based solely on OVERTURE'S results then the only competition it would have would be Gator/Claria's horrid Searchscout/GAIN system, which is the only "major search engine" I know of that is powered purely by Overture results. Though to be fair when Overture runs out of ads it just dips into the Yahoo/Inktomi pool and runs those listings instead. So I guess its not TOTALLY worthless - try for yourself at http://www.overture.com

By the way, the Gator/Overture partnership has gotten Overture's owner Yahoo in trouble and continues to miff Overture advertisers since Overture does not allow advertisers to "opt out" of their scheme.

you might get an accidental click then

They get more accidental clicks by flooding your mailbox than by being more selective. They do whatever it takes to stay profitable.

Someone else posted a while ago on /. that their morning routine is to go to a pay-per-clickthrough inclusion services like overture or looksmart or pick your own and do a search for "Mass Marketing" or "Mass email marketing" and click on the top 5 or 10 links and browse the sites a bit. Those SPAMmers are paying dearly to be placed at the top of the search results. The more people click, the more they'll pay, until they find that it's unprofitable to operate and shut down.

Noah's Ark on eBay
Find Noah's Ark items at low prices. With over 5 million items for sale every...

Noah's Ark Ornaments - Free Shipping
Everyday's a holiday has a wide variety of Noah's Ark ornaments and decorations....

Noah's Ark on eBay
Find Noah's Ark items at low prices. With over 5 million items for sale every...

Noah's Ark Ornaments - Free Shipping
Everyday's a holiday has a wide variety of Noah's Ark ornaments and decorations....

Here's another way of looking at it. Last year, Google returned about 79% of all search results on the web - a very impressive number. That's because both Yahoo and Aol used Google search results.

However, now that Yahoo no longer uses Google, it is estimated that Google will only return about 50% of the search results on the web - Yahoo will now return about 43%. See the before and after pie diagrams and numbers at Danny Sullivan's SearchEngineWatch.com article.

For those of you who have been depending on traffic free from the boy scouts at Google, who have deliberately avoided lots of different ways to monetize their main asset, have you looked at how you rank on Yahoo lately? And have you checked out Yahoo's Site Match program, where you pay BOTH for inclusion in their index AND PER CLICK THRU if anyone happens to find your site?

In the article at the bottom it says "To be clear, Lanzone said that the company will still allow site operators to pay to submit their sites to its index, but that that payment would not guarantee inclusion in the database."

Which goes right along the way Yahoo's new Site Match program works (to quote from their homepage):

"All URLs must pass initial and ongoing quality review to be included. Participation in the program does not guarantee rank in search results; rank is determined by assessing site quality and relevance to search terms."

I fail to see the point of paid inclusion under these circumstances-- in theory (and yes, I know thats the problem), websites should be indexed on a semi-regular basis regardless of whether your are paying the search engine owners or not-- as Google does and as Yahoo has actually been doing (in order to build their index to match Google's).. by just having a relevant site you should rank highly in the search results. All of this in theory of course.

In reality most sites that are relevant DO rank highly in the search results for most terms-- this NEW paid inclusion program for both Jeeves and Yahoo is just a transitionatory phase between total inclusion and no paid inclusion whatsoever. Right now they say "sure you can still give us your money.. and yeah if your relevant we'll index you.." but if your relevant you'll probably already be indexed!

.25 per keyword per year. Yeah Right!!
You obviously aren't that familiar with the PPC (Pay Per Click) industry. Google and overture(yahoo) both charge a minimum of .10 per keyword per click with some keywords costing upwards of $7 PER CLICK. Search engine placement is big money with many companies spending in the 5 and 6 figures PER MONTH for placement. So unless google/overture lower their rates low enough to make it unprofitable for the search engine spammers (and likewise unprofitable for themselves), there will always be someone trying to sell placement cheaper than overture/google.

.25 per keyword per year. Yeah Right!!
You obviously aren't that familiar with the PPC (Pay Per Click) industry. Google and overture(yahoo) both charge a minimum of .10 per keyword per click with some keywords costing upwards of $7 PER CLICK. Search engine placement is big money with many companies spending in the 5 and 6 figures PER MONTH for placement. So unless google/overture lower their rates low enough to make it unprofitable for the search engine spammers (and likewise unprofitable for themselves), there will always be someone trying to sell placement cheaper than overture/google.

Paid-for search results lessen the credibility and trustworthiness of a search engine. I personally don't put any stock in results that I know might have been manipulated by the flow of cash. If I want to find information about laptops, I want this, not this. Notice that the google search returns links to relevant research sites, whereas overture just spams me with links to retailers. A good search engine helps you find information that's not easy to find on your own, and it's not exactly difficult to find someone who wants to sell you something.

You'll have to do your own search, because Overture claims to pay attention to REFERER variables as well as cookies. But it's interesting to see that somebody's done some experimentation with it.

1. A broken link on the "Research" page. (Yeah, I know: "Here, you will find a number of in-progress research projects. At times, they will be unavailable. At times, they will produce spurious results. And at times, they will amaze and delight you." Still, a 404 isn't a research problem, guys.)
2. Concept Discovery - Utter crap. I looked through it and I don't think the algorithm is all that refined. I mean, it made "martin luther king", "martin luther king jr." and "martin luther king jr" three separate terms. Anything similar developed by Google would have easily merged the terms.
3. One of their "success stories": Spelling Correction: "Based on techniques...[blah blah blah]...our researchers developed a patent-pending method for determining which spelling correction candidates were better than others in a given context. In this way, we are able to match the most appropriate advertiser keywords to misspelled user queries." Hmmm... Let's search for Kawasaki, except I accidentally misspelled it Kawusaki. Ooops. No results. Let's see how Google does! Did I mean Kawasaki? Yes, yes I did.

Um...I guess you never heard of keyword advertising?

Third Party Search Results and Cookies
We use third-party companies to serve paid and unpaid search results and other content to our Site Finder. In the course of serving these results, these companies may place or recognize a cookie on your browser, and may use information (not including your name, address, e-mail address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other web sites in order to serve content to our site, improve the services offered on our site, or measure advertising effectiveness of paid search results. For more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having your information used by these companies, please visit http://www.content.overture.com/d/Usm/about/compan y/privacypolicy.jhtml. [Note - this link is broken... it should go here.]

Third Party Search Results and Cookies
We use third-party companies to serve paid and unpaid search results and other content to our Site Finder. In the course of serving these results, these companies may place or recognize a cookie on your browser, and may use information (not including your name, address, e-mail address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other web sites in order to serve content to our site, improve the services offered on our site, or measure advertising effectiveness of paid search results. For more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having your information used by these companies, please visit http://www.content.overture.com/d/Usm/about/compan y/privacypolicy.jhtml. [Note - this link is broken... it should go here.]

Data mining! They set up a fake SMTP server that dosn't drop the connection until AFTER they have the 'FROM' address. There partners in this sitefinder are overture, how is this FUD?

There are many alternatives to KaZaA, starting as low as 99 cents a month, that will protect your privacy and enable you to share music legally.

Try searching the web for more options. I strongly recommend checking out Intel and eBay's sites.

Try searching the web for more options. I strongly recommend checking out Intel and eBay's sites.

You need international stickers that you can put on your own keyboard. For Windows you need Keyboard Layout Manager to set up your own layouts from whatever alphabets you have on your machine. For Linux I think there's XMaps, but I might be wrong.

let's see where is the funding coming from. Project is funded by overture which is to be bought by Yahoo. More info is here. Hmm.. So i guess Yahoo needs a revival...

1) RTFM
2) STFW
3) Learn gnu/english
4) Suck Havoc penningtons "HIG"
5) Recompile your Kernel
6> type cowsay I am leet and post output to slashdot.
7) Install potato
8) ???
9) GNU/PROFIT!

I've had a hard drive show up as dead, non-bootable. I replaced the logic board on it (with one with a slightly newer firmware; lucky for me it worked) and was able to boot.

Some of the data was unavailable. I think the old logic board must have marked some boot blocks as defects so the entire disk was useless as-was, and the new logic board had a different set of defects in places where some of the actual data was.

All in all, it saved us a ton of hassle. Since the drive itself was old, and we had a similar old drive hanging around, it was really no loss to us - we weren't going to use either drive ever again for important stuff. And the best part is - this customer has given us access to run periodic backups for him! Hooray. Everyone wins.

FYI: There are services out there that charge thousands of dollars for just this very thing.

Overture used to list prices per click at $5+!

I was just trying to head over to www.kuro5hin.org after visiting slashdot and mistankenly typed www.kuri5hin.org.

Guess what? It takes me to this overture search page. Makes me wonder if they've patented the use of commonly misspelled domains. The odd thing is that the whois database says that kuri5hin.org is not registered. The IE status bar briefly showed contact with auto.search.msn.com before turning up the overture page, which is also bothersome. The most logical explanation is that overture is the default search engine for my IE install. But how did it get that way? Do they just hijack unsuspecting user's browsers?

According to this, Overture currently provides the related links on MSN. So instead of fostering competition with MSN, this deal means that MSN and Yahoo are business partners.

Having used Overture, I can safely say that Google will remain the leader in search engine technology.

Here's an example. Search for "linux" using Overture. The results are all paid results, worthless sludge like "training classes" and "hosting providers."

Now search for "linux" using Google. You get relevant, useful results with all sponsored links clearly separated from the good stuff. Of course, most people aren't as smart as me, so they might click the sponsored links. I remain convinced that Google is the best search engine ever.

Thank you.

You've never heard of overture?
They used to be GoTo.com, but they changed their name to Overture a while back. They are not really a search engine--they are more of a pay-per-click advertising technology that is integrated with pretty much every search engine except Google.

Or, you could just check it out for yourself.

What are they hoping to get out of Overture? More than 1.63 billion ;) ...and they probably will, considering how high some of those PPC bids are. Last time I checked, web hosting was like $3-$5 dollars a click! It's ridiclous, but you have to do some of that if you are a small company that doesn't have your site at the top 10 or even 20, which is pretty hard to do on your own.

Overture now actually useful

Then send this to (561) 367-7980

who actually mixes them them the actual search results? NO ONE. no search engine of any size does this period. just because you say "they" do, and don't say who "they" are, doesnt make it true.

Now for the fun part. Every time you click an Overture result, you cause the advertiser to pay Overture. As mentioned at SpamBattle, this is a great way to screw companies that sell spam software or services:

• bulk email
• email marketing
• million email
• opt-in

Use the /. effect to bankrupt spammers!