Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the back-from-the-dead dept.
iosphere writes "Terra Lycos put out a 'new and improved' HotBot today. The interface has been redone with search results courtesy of either FAST, Google, Inktomi, or Teoma." HotBot was one of my favorite search engines, back in the day.
HotBot was a great search engine just as altavista started going downhill. The thing that bothered me about hotbot was the neon green color scheme they used. Looks like that has been fixed! HOORAY!
Most including the old Hotbot were too slow. This seems to be much zippier under the Inktomi engine, but we'll have to see how it compares to Google. Cool thing is that it will use the last search engine you clicked so if you like the Google engine better than the Inktomi engine, then that's what it will use.
-- "Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
Re:too slow?
by
LostCluster
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
But why would you visit HotBot.com to use Google when it's still directly there at Google.com?
This site seems to be a "keep-alive" of the hotbot.com domain name, rather than a serious attempt at creating a useful site. Lycos is just hoping to get a little money out of the fact that people still have bookmarks to hotbot.com from back in the day.
I thought it was generally accepted that Google is far-and-away the best search engine. Do others have their advantages in certain areas or something? I wouldn't know, as I only use Google, but why should we care that hotbot's back?
--
-- "Karma can only be portioned out by the
cosmos." - Homer Simpson [1F10]
Two Words....
by
hoagieslapper
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Yahoo Maps.
Copernic is the way to go
by
MadManRun
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Copernic you search all including google and hotbot plus many more. and its free for the standard version and has its own web interface.
Re:Why not all 4 at once?
by
stripmarkup
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
because they would have to pay all four search engines for the same query.
Not a search engine..
by
xchino
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
It's just a metasearch as it's been said, so basically it just steals the results provided by real search engines. To me that is the equivalent of sticking slashdot in a frameset with your name on the top frame, and claiming you have a new news site for geeks. The only reason anybody makes a big deal out of hotbot is becasue it's part of the terra lycos web portal, you could easily write your own metasearch engine in under 30 minutes..
Support a true badass search engine and continue using google. Google has become synonymous with internet search engines, and provides USEFUL features (news search, image search, topic centric search engines, and more. I'm sure google isn't cheap to run or maintain, and we should all be damn thankful it exists,(remember life before google?).
If you use Lycos' "web portal" then fine, use hotbot, ya big cry baby, but please, please, PLEASE don't abandon google by switching to another search engine.. we need google, so support it.
-- Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
Self-Searching HotBot
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
I always like to use a search engine to search for itself and see what it comes back with. In HotBot's case:
1) HotBot - http://hotbot.lycos.com - ""
2) HotBot - http://www.hotbot.com - "Wired magazine's search engine, powered by Inktomi, allows users to search within particular geographic or cyber areas."
3) HotBot - http://members.hotbot.com - "Email and Home Pages. Sorry, HotBot Mail and Homepages are no longer available.... "
So you get two self-refferential links (good), a dead page... and something in French.
HotBot has ALWAYS used other results
by
flux4
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I'm not sure why everyone is condemning HotBot's upgrade as a shift to "mere metasearch". The site was born out of Wired Mag's ancient search engine expose article, where they all decided Inktomi was the one to use. HotBot has been powered by Inktomi since day one, they're just offering other sources now.
Not Mozilla compliant?
by
lanemcf
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
When I tried to skin Hotbot, it tells me to download IE or Netscape, and doesn't give me the skinning options. I'm using Mozilla 1.2 (the version I use at work). Not a very auspicious beginning for a brand-new site.
Re:Search Engine Competition is Good!
by
LostCluster
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I'm not convinced these guys have gotten the word that you have to do something that's really worthwhile to make money on the web now.
Unfortunately, you don't.
The deal here is simple. HotBot resigns from the search engine game, and serves as a redirector to the survivors. When you do a Google search via HotBot, Google's AdWords ads appear at the top and sides just like on Google. HotBot's owners get to take a cut of Google's ad revenue from such ads.
CDNow is doing the same thing. They've pulled out of the music-selling business, and now simply have become a glorified Amazon.com Affiliate. If you type CDNow.com into your URL bad expecting the old site, you get a music-focused view of Amazon.com, and CDNow takes a cut from anything you buy when you enter Amazon.com in through their door/
Re:Must be...
by
wideBlueSkies
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
>>Seriously though, why do you need anything other then google?
That kind of thinking is what keeps windoze on 99% of desktops.
Nothing wrong with a little bit of competition to keep the leaders on their toes, and to create future leaders.
-- Huh?
No^WFew tables!
by
HoserHead
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Check out the source to the new hotbot site. It seems the majority of the layout is done using standard CSS instead of tables.
This is encouraging - looks like TerraLycos is continuing the work that was done with Wired's conversion to a table-free design. Too bad it doesn't validate, though.
Mozilla does not support Web standards? ...
by
clubin
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
When trying to skin Hotbot, via stylesheets, on Phoenix v0.5, Hotbot reported the following:
HotBot Skins
To choose a new skin for HotBot, you must download a browser that supports Web standards.
Read More about why this is important and what you're missing.
Download Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator.
Take a look at some of the skins you are missing...
Maybe I should switch to IE, for a more standards-conforming experience. (Do note that this mostly just humor; I'll report it to them that their UA-filter isn't aware that Phoenix is Mozilla)
UPDATE: Before sending them anything, I decided to open up Mozilla v1.2.1 and try it there. To my great surprise, it gave the same error! "Netscape Navigator" did not implicitly mean "all gecko-based browsers"; it truly mean Netscape Navigator!
Re:Google and HotBot Google have different results
by
Frizzle+Fry
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Hotbot's Google search for "clown" skips the #1 hit to move to the site for Insane Clown Posse.
Insane Clown Posse isn't considered offensive content?!
-- I'd rather be lucky than good.
Re:Hotbot Returns?
by
LostCluster
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Hotbot never was a search engine. From the day it launched, it did nothing but provide Inktomi's results. (Inktomi has always had the odd business model of powering other people's sites while refusing to run an inktomi.com serach engine for themselves.)
Over time, other parters have come and gone, but there has never been a true Hotbot search engine.
Re:Why not all 4 at once?
by
tbmaddux
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Are the four cookies taking up too much space...
I said at least 10. I wasn't kidding (stopped counting at 10 and there were >1 left). It just slows me down in the Mozilla cookie manager, which I check somewhat frequently. Given that Google can apparently store a lot of preference data in just one lousy cookie (see, it's not a space issue, its a convenience issue), there's no good reason for Hotbot to clutter my life with 10... so they won't, I ain't goin' there.
-- Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?
Slashdot Mirror
HotBot was a great search engine just as altavista started going downhill. The thing that bothered me about hotbot was the neon green color scheme they used. Looks like that has been fixed! HOORAY!
Most including the old Hotbot were too slow. This seems to be much zippier under the Inktomi engine, but we'll have to see how it compares to Google. Cool thing is that it will use the last search engine you clicked so if you like the Google engine better than the Inktomi engine, then that's what it will use.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
I thought it was generally accepted that Google is far-and-away the best search engine. Do others have their advantages in certain areas or something? I wouldn't know, as I only use Google, but why should we care that hotbot's back?
--
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." - Homer Simpson [1F10]
Yahoo Maps.
Copernic you search all including google and hotbot plus many more. and its free for the standard version and has its own web interface.
because they would have to pay all four search engines for the same query.
See charts for twitter trends on Trendistic
- Google with 130 results
- HotBot Google with 41 results
I'm guessing that HotBot is using the Google public API's, and that is returning different results than the standard Google results?Sex - Find It
It's just a metasearch as it's been said, so basically it just steals the results provided by real search engines. To me that is the equivalent of sticking slashdot in a frameset with your name on the top frame, and claiming you have a new news site for geeks. The only reason anybody makes a big deal out of hotbot is becasue it's part of the terra lycos web portal, you could easily write your own metasearch engine in under 30 minutes..
Support a true badass search engine and continue using google. Google has become synonymous with internet search engines, and provides USEFUL features (news search, image search, topic centric search engines, and more. I'm sure google isn't cheap to run or maintain, and we should all be damn thankful it exists,(remember life before google?).
If you use Lycos' "web portal" then fine, use hotbot, ya big cry baby, but please, please, PLEASE don't abandon google by switching to another search engine.. we need google, so support it.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
I always like to use a search engine to search for itself and see what it comes back with. In HotBot's case:
... "
..."
... and something in French.
1) HotBot - http://hotbot.lycos.com - ""
2) HotBot - http://www.hotbot.com - "Wired magazine's search engine, powered by Inktomi, allows users to search within particular geographic or cyber areas."
3) HotBot - http://members.hotbot.com - "Email and Home Pages. Sorry, HotBot Mail and Homepages are no longer available.
4) HotBot FR - http://www.hotbot.lycos.fr - "Créer votre. HotBot. Trouver: Aide. Options de recherche
So you get two self-refferential links (good), a dead page
I'm not sure why everyone is condemning HotBot's upgrade as a shift to "mere metasearch". The site was born out of Wired Mag's ancient search engine expose article, where they all decided Inktomi was the one to use. HotBot has been powered by Inktomi since day one, they're just offering other sources now.
When I tried to skin Hotbot, it tells me to download IE or Netscape, and doesn't give me the skinning options. I'm using Mozilla 1.2 (the version I use at work). Not a very auspicious beginning for a brand-new site.
I'm not convinced these guys have gotten the word that you have to do something that's really worthwhile to make money on the web now.
Unfortunately, you don't.
The deal here is simple. HotBot resigns from the search engine game, and serves as a redirector to the survivors. When you do a Google search via HotBot, Google's AdWords ads appear at the top and sides just like on Google. HotBot's owners get to take a cut of Google's ad revenue from such ads.
CDNow is doing the same thing. They've pulled out of the music-selling business, and now simply have become a glorified Amazon.com Affiliate. If you type CDNow.com into your URL bad expecting the old site, you get a music-focused view of Amazon.com, and CDNow takes a cut from anything you buy when you enter Amazon.com in through their door/
>>Seriously though, why do you need anything other then google?
That kind of thinking is what keeps windoze on 99% of desktops.
Nothing wrong with a little bit of competition to keep the leaders on their toes, and to create future leaders.
Huh?
This is encouraging - looks like TerraLycos is continuing the work that was done with Wired's conversion to a table-free design. Too bad it doesn't validate, though.
When trying to skin Hotbot, via stylesheets, on Phoenix v0.5, Hotbot reported the following:
Maybe I should switch to IE, for a more standards-conforming experience. (Do note that this mostly just humor; I'll report it to them that their UA-filter isn't aware that Phoenix is Mozilla)
UPDATE: Before sending them anything, I decided to open up Mozilla v1.2.1 and try it there. To my great surprise, it gave the same error! "Netscape Navigator" did not implicitly mean "all gecko-based browsers"; it truly mean Netscape Navigator!
Insane Clown Posse isn't considered offensive content?!
I'd rather be lucky than good.
Hotbot never was a search engine. From the day it launched, it did nothing but provide Inktomi's results. (Inktomi has always had the odd business model of powering other people's sites while refusing to run an inktomi.com serach engine for themselves.) Over time, other parters have come and gone, but there has never been a true Hotbot search engine.
Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?