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.
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]
Google and HotBot Google have different results.
by
dagg
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Googles results are different than
the HotBot Google results. Here's an
example.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Slashdot Mirror
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]
- 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'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.
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.
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.