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Honeymoon Over For Google?

Posted by timothy on from the honeymoons-are-temporary dept.

scubacuda writes "Business Week has an article on some of the challenges Google faces as it gains popularity. For a while, things were looking good: unobtrusive ads, a hardware search appliance, and the fact that 'google' has become a verb (like xerox, kleenex, hoover, etc.). Now, Yahoo! has dropped the 'exclusive' part of its contract, Overture won a series of key contracts, Verity has announced a deal to purchase Inktomi's assets, and Y! announced it was buying Inktomi's web-search business. And other engines such as WiseNut, Teoma, and FAST now mimic Google's 'popularity placement technology.'"

5 of 444 comments (clear)

  1. Wrong link to FAST in story by McDutchie · · Score: 5, Informative

    Surffast.com is just a meta search engine, the FAST that is meant here is at alltheweb.com.

  2. Er, no by The+Bungi · · Score: 5, Informative
    1. Absolutely the fastest search, period.
    2. Relevant results in ~99% of searches (in my experience). Consistently comes up with the most obscure stuff imaginable (and I've checked against other engines)
    3. Ads look like ads and they're not masqueraded as results (and yeah, everyone's copying that now, whoopi)
    4. Usenet archive. Heeelooooo!!!
    5. News meta crawler. Haven't looked at another "portal" since Google News went live.
    6. Privately held company. No Yahoo-style pressures for revenue.
    7. The Amazing Browser Toolbar. Also copied by everyone now.
    8. Excellent site design. Clean, uncluttered, just nice.
    9. The Zeitgeist (sp?)
    10. Cool company with a sense of humor.
    Wake me up when everyone else (especially "wisenut", which I've never heard about before) gets there.
  3. Google.com - Nope.. by WittyName · · Score: 5, Informative

    I like Google.ca, the canadian one.

    No DMCA takedowns there.

    And I am a US resident..

    --
    The law is a weapon of the government, not a protection for the likes of you. Surely you understand that.
  4. Re:Google Easily Explained by Edgewize · · Score: 5, Informative

    There isn't the purpose of the international Googles. It is /not/ trying to assume that you want Australian content. It is trying to comply with whatever laws exist in your country.

    For example, some European countries get very uppity if a search returns sites with pro-Nazi content. Those Google pages have to filter out the things that would be illegal for Google to serve in those countries. Likewise, I'm told that internet pornography is banned in Australia. Now I don't know that for a fact, or whatever other laws there are about content censorship in Australia, but you can see where I'm going with this.

    The international Googles are not so much to steer you to nationalized content, but rather to allow Google to comply with international laws.

  5. Power searching Slashdot with Google by SilentReproach · · Score: 5, Informative
    Use the keywords:
    google site:slashdot.org
    in Google's search engine to find Slashdot articles related to Google. It sure beats using the slashdot search engine.

    Or, here's a quick link to a Google search of Slashdot Google coverage.

    --
    Religion is the opium of the people. Evolution is the opium of scientists.