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Honeymoon Over For Google?

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.'"

204 of 444 comments (clear)

  1. Kleenex A Verb? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Hey, Kleenex your grammar!

    1. Re:Kleenex A Verb? by bmarklein · · Score: 2

      Kleenex is used as a noun - my father says "Kleenex" to refer to a tissue. Of course he also says "icebox" instead of refrigerator...

    2. Re:Kleenex A Verb? by Zeinfeld · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Google's lawyers would no doybt insist it is an adjective. Becomming a verb is a very bad thing for dillution claims

      Google's recent arrival on the dotcom scene proves that the barriers to entry have not increased over time. Disproving yet another strand of looney analyst think. Remember the days when yahoo was worth $gazillions because it would be the 'portal' through which all e-commerce flowed?

      Google displaced the other search engines using technology that was hardly unknown at the time. I think the fact altavista and hotbot did not respond indicates they were engaged in Lotus/Visicalc type sleeping on the job. They were in milk the cash cow mode. I suspect google will stay on top at least as long as it remains independent simply because they are like Microsoft, they keep working on the product as if they were number 3 even when they are number 1 by a long way.

      The more interesting dynamic is what will happen after Yahoo switches from Google to inktomi which they just bought. I think this forces Google to go after Yahoo on all fronts. Google can copy Yahoo's stock chat site without much difficulty. The hosted web mail will not take much either. They already have dejanews and an interface to the advertisers. Yahoo meanwhile have let their catalog grow really stale, I don't know anyone who uses it these days except as a backup to google.

      So question, if you are Ted Turner and the AOL merger of time warner had not gone through. What would you want to buy now, AOL or Google?

      --
      Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
      Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
    3. Re:Kleenex A Verb? by Dirtside · · Score: 5, Funny

      Why? Kleenex is a perfectly cromulent verb.

      --
      "Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
    4. Re:Kleenex A Verb? by kevcol · · Score: 2

      Hoover can be used as a noun when discussing a female's ability to suc...

      Nevermind.
      "She's a Hoover!"

      Ah.. doing a search at -1, I see an A/C posted something like this. So I'll bring it in at +2. Mod down as appropriate. ;-)

    5. Re:Kleenex A Verb? by LostCluster · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Google's recent arrival on the dotcom scene proves that the barriers to entry have not increased over time.

      But Google staying there, while later-comers such as AllTheWeb and Teoma are stuck at also-ran status, proves the opposite.

      Google was just so good it got over the barriers. It hit at a time when AltaVista was sleeping, and Yahoo was busy creating non-search features. It beat the competition, and was able to get people to change their homepages.

      Now, the problem is a newcomer has to A: Be better than Google and B: Be able to distact people from Google. Neither is an easy task.

    6. Re:Kleenex A Verb? by Ratbert42 · · Score: 2
      Google can copy Yahoo's...

      I don't know about the rest of you, but all I use Yahoo! for is to get, all on one page:

    7. Re:Kleenex A Verb? by zsau · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Furthermore, 'to google' isn't a verb like 'to hoover' is, unless the people who use the latter aren't telling me something.

      'To google' means 'to search the web using Google'. 'To hoover' means 'to vacuum-clean'. You could hoover a room with with a Sanyo vacuum cleaner, but you couldn't google for 'conlang' with Alta-Vista.

      --
      Look out!
    8. Re:Kleenex A Verb? by Jeremi · · Score: 5, Insightful
      We've never truly seen Google behaving in an aggressive, competitive way


      It's ironic that creating a superior product at a low price (free, in this case) is no longer considered "competitive behaviour". These days, you aren't considered "competitive" unless you are engaging in anti-competitive behaviour (customer lock-in, standards pollution, collusion, etc).

      --


      I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
    9. Re:Kleenex A Verb? by Jeremi · · Score: 2

      Actually, Google is profitable. Please get your facts straight before accusing other people of spouting crap.

      --


      I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
  2. Changes nothing by TheCrimsonUnbeliever · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It still does not change the fact:

    People love google

    Everyone is now using it - as it is small - light - fast - easy - and good

    People have irc scripts that use it - Embed it in their webpages

    I for one hope that google lasts - I would even pay a small amount if it would help keep them going

    1. Re:Changes nothing by Anonvmous+Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      "I for one hope that google lasts - I would even pay a small amount if it would help keep them going"

      Gotta wonder what it would take to dethrone Google, thouogh.

      Personally, I think their image search is great. If they'd beef that up a bit, I'd be seriously considering a subscription not unlike the kind Slashdot has. $5 for 1,000 image searches or something like that. The catch is that it'd have to be better than the one today. Perhaps if they had a rewards system where you could earn searches by taking pics around the web and logging meta-data for them or something.

    2. Re:Changes nothing by chimpo13 · · Score: 4, Funny


      People loved hotbot, and altavista too. And lots of people search on yahoo. If yahoo changes, it'll open a big crack.

      Think of a catchy name and start a search engine. Something like "Compuglobalhypermeganet" would do well.

    3. Re:Changes nothing by On+Lawn · · Score: 5, Interesting


      I think their News search is downright revolutionary. Not only do I get news categorized by what people really want to see but I can instantly check out viewpoints from all sides at the same time.

      Its now my primary news source.

    4. Re:Changes nothing by Psx29 · · Score: 4, Insightful
      It still does not change the fact: People love google Everyone is now using it - as it is small - light - fast - easy - and good People have irc scripts that use it - Embed it in their webpages I for one hope that google lasts - I would even pay a small amount if it would help keep them going

      Isn't this kind of ideology exactly what let to the 'dot-com crash'. People invested lots of capital in companies that people enjoyed but weren't necessarily very profitable. I think google is the latest subject to this phenomenon. Although I could be,and hope that I am, wrong.

    5. Re:Changes nothing by Xerithane · · Score: 2

      If they'd beef that up a bit, I'd be seriously considering a subscription not unlike the kind Slashdot has. $5 for 1,000 image searches or something like that.

      I'd definitely donate a buck or two a month to google, I'm pretty sure a lot of people would. If they setup a voluntary donation bin I would bet it would make a substantial amount of money.

      Maybe offer some sort of a gimmick for the donators, like being able to vote on holiday google logos or things like that.

      --
      Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
    6. Re:Changes nothing by ibennetch · · Score: 3, Interesting

      People love google...Everyone is now using it...

      "Back in the day" everyone used Altavista. The boolean searches were unparalleled and it found things no other search engine could find. I also would pay a small amount to keep Google going. i haven't found anything that comes close to Google's ability to find what I'm looking for. But for years I said the same thing about Altavista...I'm not saying Google's time is up yet, but there have been others before that haven't fared very well.

    7. Re:Changes nothing by Crispin+Cowan · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Isn't this kind of ideology exactly what let to the 'dot-com crash'. People invested lots of capital in companies that people enjoyed but weren't necessarily very profitable. I think google is the latest subject to this phenomenon. Although I could be,and hope that I am, wrong.
      IIRC, in his keynote address to USENIX LISA 2002, Jim Reese, Google's Chief Operations Engineer, claimed that Google is profitable.

      Crispin
      ----
      Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
      Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
      Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
      Available for purchase

    8. Re:Changes nothing by autocracy · · Score: 2

      Yeah, but they either changed and became crappy, or the world changed around them and made them crappy. Google won't become less popular unless somebody can 2-up 'em (1 isn't enough), or the do the same thing and fuck up - neither of which I expect to see happening.

      --
      SIG: HUP
    9. Re:Changes nothing by JoeBuck · · Score: 2

      The difference is that Google is profitable.

    10. Re:Changes nothing by buswolley · · Score: 2
      google is good, but competition is better. they had their day at complete dominance of that market, mde their much. Now the better times of competition.

      I don't know if I believe what I just said.

      --

      A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.

    11. Re:Changes nothing by Reziac · · Score: 2

      You can do that now -- place a text ad on Google, and cough up the few cents apiece for every time your ad comes up due to matching someone's search criterion. You can set a limit of how much you want to pay per month, too.

      Relevant *text-only* ads are one of the reasons I like Google. In fact, I was impressed enough that eventually I plan to place my own text ad on Google.

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
    12. Re:Changes nothing by Reziac · · Score: 2

      I did have the thought earlier today that IPOs may well be the kiss of death for companies like Google. Maybe not immediately, but as the company changes over time to make stockholders happy, and eventually gets eaten by some other company.

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
    13. Re:Changes nothing by The+Man · · Score: 3, Informative
      People loved hotbot, and altavista too. And lots of people search on yahoo. If yahoo changes, it'll open a big crack.

      Yes, but there's a major difference: Google is noticeably better than any other search engine offered to date. So even if other companies can duplicate its quality, people will still use Google. That is the nature of the first mover advantage. This advantage, as so many learned, does not protect you from quantum leaps in technology. Google will fall over and die as soon as someone comes up with something dramatically better - not "about as good" or even "a little better" - dramatically better. Yahoo! is irrelevant in the current market; it's a dinosaur waiting until the end of the extinction to die off, and in any case its search engine is not only not dramatically better than Google, it isn't even nearly as good. Everyone knows it. And almost nobody uses Yahoo! any more for exactly that reason. You want to beat Google, you have to be a lot better. Simple, eh? Now go to it, kids; no whining.

    14. Re:Changes nothing by First_In_Hell · · Score: 3, Funny

      I used alta-vista once. I had to write a term paper for my foreign language class and I used their assey translator. I bet you can guess what grade I got.

    15. Re:Changes nothing by pediddle · · Score: 2

      I used Hotbot, but I wouldn't say I loved it. For a while I remember that it had the most indexed pages of any engine, so I always tried to use it first. But Hotbot, like all the other engines of old, hardly ever gave relevant results. That's why Hotbot, Altavista, and of course Dogpile all had their own buttons on my toolbar.

    16. Re:Changes nothing by pediddle · · Score: 2

      You haven't read your own sig, have you?

    17. Re:Changes nothing by sql*kitten · · Score: 2

      I'd definitely donate a buck or two a month to google, I'm pretty sure a lot of people would. If they setup a voluntary donation bin I would bet it would make a substantial amount of money.

      Google do have paid services, like Answers. If you want to give them some money, consider using one of these.

    18. Re:Changes nothing by 6hill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What I find most interesting about the Google News service is its equalising factor when it comes to news sources. NY Times is right alongside Kansas City Star, Slashdot, and Arutz Sheva as an equal news source. No longer does one viewpoint dominate a news item, but instead, there exists a one-stop shop for all takes and opinions on an issue. How fabulous is that?!

      This brings a whole new twist to what is a respectable news source and more importantly, maybe also teaches something about how important it is to read also "reputable" news sources (Reuters, BBC, etc.) with healthy scepticism and criticism. How post-modern, this breaking down of establishment as the only reliable source of information.

    19. Re:Changes nothing by henben · · Score: 2
      Isn't this kind of ideology exactly what let to the 'dot-com crash'. People invested lots of capital in companies that people enjoyed but weren't necessarily very profitable. I think google is the latest subject to this phenomenon. Although I could be,and hope that I am, wrong.

      I don't think it's comparable.

      Google is making a profit now, not operating on the hopes of future revenue. And it's not even IPO'd yet. And I think a lot of failed dotcoms offered services that were actually useless or impossible to run at a profit.

    20. Re:Changes nothing by Bohnanza · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'm also a big fan of Google News. Another thing about Google I like is the fact that you can input your search term once and then run it through all the tabs (Web, Images, Groups, Directory, News). Saves time and finds you some interesting unexpected results.

      --

      -----

      Sorry, I'm only a 1336 h4x0r.

    21. Re:Changes nothing by crisco · · Score: 2

      Not only equalizing, but sometimes a small local paper has stuff that hasn't hit the wire yet so isn't showing up in reguritized and duplicated format across those 'reputable' sources. For example, when the Washington area sniper first gained major attention one of the small papers listed on Google had the most details.

      --

      Bleh!

  3. Yeah, but they still get the hits by The_K4 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They may start to see more channenges, but by and large people will still "google" things. People who always use google will as long as they remain a great search engine...if they start letting the results slip, then all bets are off.

    1. Re:Yeah, but they still get the hits by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      the real power is at

      http://groups.google.com/

      (the artist formerly known as dejanews)

      if they start charging for access...i'm screwed...cause i'll HAVE TO PAY!

      it's that good!

    2. Re:Yeah, but they still get the hits by timeOday · · Score: 2
      Yeah, you can still get there by typing dejanews.com.

      If they started charging for access, I'd buy a subscription and charge it to my company. I am constantly finding solutions and ideas to do my job in the usenet archive.

      It's a shame and somewhat amazing that, as far as I know, there's only one usenet news archive. Maybe some secretive govt. agency has their own and just isn't sharing :)

    3. Re:Yeah, but they still get the hits by Dun+Malg · · Score: 2
      If they started charging for access, I'd buy a subscription and charge it to my company. I am constantly finding solutions and ideas to do my job in the usenet archive.

      You said it, man. need to reset a lost BayStack 350 switch console password? dejanews.

      --
      If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
  4. Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    The honeymoon may be over, but Google is still getting laid.

    Want to know why? Press ALT-HOME to find out.
    I actually click on Google's ads.

    1. Re:Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      No, silly. ALT-HOME takes you to Slashdot;
      Clicking on the URL bar and typing "goo" takes you to Gooogle. :)

    2. Re:Google by Archfeld · · Score: 2

      I just use the google bar and don't even go to google anymore.....now that could be a slight problem with their model.

      --
      errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
    3. Re:Google by handsomepete · · Score: 4, Funny

      about:blank gets Google laid? I think if I about:blanked a girl, I'd get about:slapped.

    4. Re:Google by ehiris · · Score: 2

      Do you always click on I'm feeling lucky? Maybe you should switch to Yahoo. You might be able to find more results that way.

  5. Google second , according to google by JohnHegarty · · Score: 3, Informative

    Searchs on google

    Yahoo 86,500,000
    Google 19,100,000
    Altavista 5,480,000

    1. Re:Google second , according to google by Idarubicin · · Score: 4, Funny
      The problem is that Yahoo appears in a number of contexts on the web not related to search engines.

      Try searching for Yahoo -"George W Bush" and watch the number of hits plummet.

      --
      ~Idarubicin
  6. Google Easily Explained by Bonker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    1. Google has accurate, intelligent search lists.
    2. Google does not pollute those lists with advertisements.
    3. Google loads quickly and does not attempt to invasively control your machine with javascript or other methods.

    If Google changes any one of these three things to make more money based on their popularity, then their popularity will wane and they will eventually make less money.

    Note to Google: Don't kill the golden goose just yet.

    --
    The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
    1. Re:Google Easily Explained by KiwiSurfer · · Score: 2, Informative
      3. Google loads quickly and does not attempt to invasively control your machine with javascript or other methods.

      Well, I got the following JavaScript snippet from http://wwww.google.co.nz/

      <script>
      document.f.q.focus();
      </script>

      The above code causes Google to come to the front of all the windows once it load -- which is very irrating especially when I have to use non-tabbed browsers such as MSIE. Google is a very good search engine and this is about the only feature I strongly disklike about it.

      Your other points are valid however.

      - James

    2. Re:Google Easily Explained by Anonymous+Hack · · Score: 5, Interesting
      3. Google loads quickly and does not attempt to invasively control your machine with javascript or other methods.

      This is not true, as many Canadian users have known for a while and many Australian users such as myself have just discovered. Google now redirects the front page (www.google.com) to a country-specific front page based on your IP address. Sure, it's a nice service to have local information available (the paid advertisements down the side change to local advertisements, amongst other things), but it really sucks that you're forced to use it. Most users don't know to change their bookmark to http://www.google.com/intl/en/ to return to the "real" Google, so they're stuck with it. This was the number one reason why i changed from Alta Vista to Google in the first place, and now i'm really wondering whether i should stick with it. raging.com is Alta Vista's minimal search, and it's just as fast and sleek as google, AND it doesn't assume just because you come from 203.x.x.whatever you're automatically interested in Australian content.

      --
      I got a sig so you would remember me.
    3. Re:Google Easily Explained by egjertse · · Score: 4, Informative

      Wrong; the above code causes the query text input box to get focus once the page loads, so you don't have to click it manually to enter a query. A very useful, and common, feature. document.f.q refers to the widget named "q" in the form named "f".

    4. Re:Google Easily Explained by Sparr0 · · Score: 2

      And giving focus to something in a background window is damn annoying.

    5. Re:Google Easily Explained by Edgewize · · Score: 2, Informative

      then your window manager really sucks. at least in an ideal system, there are two levels of focus - application focus and input focus. every application has its own input focus. you can switch between applications all you want. if a background window changes the input focus, the change is only for that application and you will only notice it if you choose to make that application active.

    6. 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.

    7. Re:Google Easily Explained by almightyjustin · · Score: 2

      If you only want English results, go into Preferences and select "Search only for pages written in these language(s):" and "English". I for one often find useful information on pages even when I can't read the language (file downloads, for example), but you're free to set the option if you want...

      --

      Omnes arx vestrum sunt adiuncta nobis.

    8. Re:Google Easily Explained by almightyjustin · · Score: 2

      If you save your preferences and have cookies enabled it should be set automatically from then on. As for the detection not being very accurate, there's not much that can be done about that; language detection is iffy at best. Also, I just tried searching for "magnet" with and without English-only specified; turning on English-only got rid of all the foreign language links I could see.

      --

      Omnes arx vestrum sunt adiuncta nobis.

    9. Re:Google Easily Explained by Will_Malverson · · Score: 2

      Is it based on your IP, or is it based on your computer's regional settings? I work for a company where we test hardware on various non-English versions of Windows, and one of my standard tests to make sure that the regions are set up correctly is to load google.com in IE -- if it redirects to the appropriate country's web page, then the regional settings must be set correctly.

    10. Re:Google Easily Explained by Anonymous+Hack · · Score: 2, Informative

      I can assure you we can still browse porn here :-) I think the Australian laws are more of a token effort to stamp out child porn and other types of extreme porn that aren't legal in any media here. The thing is, these laws are targeted at the ISPs specifically - the way it SHOULD be. It's not Google's responsibility to ensure it's following the laws of a country that it doesn't do business in.

      --
      I got a sig so you would remember me.
    11. Re:Google Easily Explained by Sparr0 · · Score: 2

      But what if both windows are children of the same application? I speak of Opera (or Mozilla) of course. The background window gets input focus and the browser keeps application focus.

    12. Re:Google Easily Explained by plam · · Score: 2

      This is not true, as many Canadian users have known for a while and many Australian users such as myself have just discovered. Google now redirects the front page (www.google.com) to a country-specific front page based on your IP address.


      I recently found out that if you go to http://www.google.com. (with the extra dot at the end) then it doesn't autoredirect. This doesn't always work, but sometimes it does; lynx continues to redirect, for instance. It's weird.

      (The dot is implicit in regular DNS lookups. For some reason it seems to change the autoredirect behaviour.)
    13. Re:Google Easily Explained by Drakonian · · Score: 2

      On the bottom list of links on these pages (at least google.ca) there is a link that says Google.com. That will take you to the US one. And I believe it sets a cookie so that it will default to it. No big deal my friend.

      --
      Random is the New Order.
    14. Re:Google Easily Explained by arkanes · · Score: 2

      It's your window manager sucking, then. That's not googles fault. Even windows doesn't move a background window to the front just because the input focus changed (and in win2k+, applications [usually] can't give themselves the focus anyway)

    15. Re:Google Easily Explained by evbergen · · Score: 2

      Of course, as long as they don't run any servers in the Netherlands, why should they get nervous about what the Dutch authorities consider illegal content?

      They are not broadcasting the information or even publishing it in any way, not in the Netherlands. I specifically reach out with my request gor information all the way to the hosting center in the US, which kindly delivers it to me.

      Now, if the Dutch authorities want to control what I see, they need to install content-aware firewalls at the national border. But how they can bother google with any request or demand whatsoever is beyond me, *if* google has no servers in the Netherlands that is.

      In short, I don't really agree with your reasoning, and I really think it's strange (and worrying) if Google is really afraid of legislation from countries from which it doesn't server any information.

      Because that would set a precedent that if I put up certain information on /my/ computer, that /I/ would become responsible for making sure that information is not sent to , not even upon explicit request from the client.

      Which is not only a can of worms, technically and legally, but completely bollocks, IMHO.

      --
      All generalizations are false, including this one. (Mark Twain)
  7. I'm all for it by dusanv · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm so dependent on Google (professionally & personaly) that it's becoming scary. I don't know what I'd do if disaster struck (they folded, got bought by MS or something similar). As soon as someone comes close to the quality their searches I'll feel better.

    1. Re:I'm all for it by NineNine · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I agree. Google holds *too* much sway on the Web. Their listings either make or break a web site. I know that Google does some very wierd things with some of my listings (first page one day, not in the directory the next), and there's literally nobody to contact, and nothing that I can do about it. I know that other people are in the same boat. I'm all for multiple search engines.

    2. Re:I'm all for it by jez9999 · · Score: 2

      Literally nobody to contact? Maybe you should spend 5 minutes browsing Google's website:

      Contact page

    3. Re:I'm all for it by NineNine · · Score: 2

      Automated Reply.

      Please don't respond to this post. It is machine generated.

    4. Re:I'm all for it by MicroBerto · · Score: 2

      You know what.. I'm gonna see how many separate searches I do with google tomorrow at work and at home. I bet it's close to 30 or even 40, and I don't even consider myself THAT heavy of a user!

      --
      Berto
    5. Re:I'm all for it by The+Cydonian · · Score: 2

      Try All The Web. Doesn't have a groups section though, which is convinient if you are asking a question rather than searching for something.

    6. Re:I'm all for it by hkmwbz · · Score: 2
      "Their listings either make or break a web site.
      If you rely on Google for traffic, that's your problem and your decision. So you rely on free advertising from Google, eh? How nice. In the real world, we pay for ads.
      --
      Clever signature text goes here.
  8. Wisenut? by Sandman1971 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Why was wisenut added to this list? Doesn't look like a stable site to me. I'm really sure they're gonna give google a run for their money :P
    --------------
    The page cannot be displayed
    There is a problem with the page you are trying to reach and it cannot be displayed.

    Please try the following:

    * Click the Refresh button, or try again later.
    * Open the www.wisenut.com home page, and then look for links to the information you want.

    HTTP 500.100 - Internal Server Error - ASP error
    Internet Information Services

    Technical Information (for support personnel)

    * Error Type:
    Microsoft VBScript runtime (0x800A004C)
    Path not found /index.html, line 14

    * Browser Type:
    Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.2.1) Gecko/20021130

    * Page:
    GET /index.html

    * Time:
    Tuesday, January 14, 2003, 2:27:11 PM

    * More information:
    Microsoft Support

    --
    It's better to burn out than to fade away
    1. Re:Wisenut? by caluml · · Score: 3, Funny

      HTTP 500.100 - Internal Server Error - ASP error
      Internet Information Services


      Lol - that's what you get when you try and run enterprise services on non-enterprise OSes... :)

      OK, so I'm trolling a bit.. :)

      But I'm saddened to see yet another Slashdotter using Windows NT 5.1.
      Surely you can tear yourselves away from the soft, familiar womb that is Windows.... Try it, give it a go, be adventurous. You might never leave the town your were born in, but do something crazy, wild, exciting in your life.... /sarcasm

    2. Re:Wisenut? by Sandman1971 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      But I'm saddened to see yet another Slashdotter using Windows NT 5.1. Surely you can tear yourselves away from the soft, familiar womb that is Windows.... Try it, give it a go, be adventurous. You might never leave the town your were born in, but do something crazy, wild, exciting in your life....

      Ya know, I'm kinda getting sick of always seeing this on slashdot.

      So I happen to be surfing on my windows box. Yippee! My linux boxes I mostly use as servers (web/mail/firewall),coding and work (I'm a sysadmin in a mostly Sun shop) because that's what they're best at (not to mention one is a P200 that I don't even dare launch X on). I use my windows box to do net stuff (cuz face it, alot of browser plugins and such arent available on windows), gaming and graphics work. I'm thinking of even getting a Mac to do my graphics work instead of doing it on Windows.

      Linux is good for some things, Windows for others and Macs for other things. I use whatever platform is best for what I want to do. No OS is the be all and end all of operating systems. They all have their different strengths and weaknesses. So be adventurous, open your mind, don't be narrowminded.

      Windows user since 1990
      Unix user since 1991 (AIX)
      Linux user since 1993-94
      Solaris user since 1998
      and possible future Mac user

      --
      It's better to burn out than to fade away
    3. Re:Wisenut? by iggymanz · · Score: 3, Offtopic

      I do my photo scanning & turbotax on my old windows 98se machine....but you know, that P200 will run X apps just fine, but not most of today's bloated window managers. Just for fun you might want to try lightweight one, just do "X11 lightweight window manager" in google.

    4. Re:Wisenut? by Sparr0 · · Score: 2

      Following logs is a pretty dumb idea anyways. I use opera and yet I always report Mozilla or OE as my user agent because so many sites give me an "upgrade your browser" page if I report Opera.

    5. Re:Wisenut? by caluml · · Score: 2

      I use opera and yet I always report Mozilla or OE as my user agent because so many sites give me an "upgrade your browser" page if I report Opera

      Yep, and they'll continue to do so until they start seeing people using Opera.
      Can't you see the problem? It's like being sucked down to the lowest common denominator, and then web-developers just say, aaaah, everyone is using IE.

    6. Re:Wisenut? by caluml · · Score: 2

      It should be mentioned that the user agent was in the error message.

    7. Re:Wisenut? by iggymanz · · Score: 2

      The really lightweight window managers can even run on 16-24MB machines, if the client applications aren't too heavy.

    8. Re:Wisenut? by Sandman1971 · · Score: 2

      True, but that machine's main function is as a firewall, gateway, mail server, web server and private IRC server, monitoring server, DNS server, etc... I wouldn't want to needlessly put a load like X on it. I use my other linux machine to run X (it's a 500mhz), and even that gets strained at times.

      --
      It's better to burn out than to fade away
    9. Re:Wisenut? by Sandman1971 · · Score: 2

      Oh you poor boy. That was when AIX sucked hard. What an introduction to Unix.

      Oh AIX was pure fun, considering before that I was on CMS for like a month, and VMS for like 6 (university accounts if you havent guessed). AIX was a pure pleasure after that *g* God CMS was a piece of $#17

      --
      It's better to burn out than to fade away
    10. Re:Wisenut? by badboy_tw2002 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Dude, chill out. Its a computer not a way of life. Think of it as an appliance--like a toaster. Are you going to stand by the toaster you bought, no matter if it won't do the big thick bagels you like?

      FUCK those companies for not making thin bagels. I guess Sara Lee doesn't want my money!

      Sounds rediculous, but really, don't get religous about a machine.

  9. Apple Safari by JHromadka · · Score: 3, Informative
    Safari, Apple's new web browser, has a Google bar in its slimmed-down interface, so Google is getting a few wins these days. You can even click the magnifying glass and pull up past searches.

    I don't see Google going away anytime soon. I've never heard of those other engines and do not have any interest in them.

    --
    "The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved." -- John Ashcroft
  10. Honeymoon over for Slashdot? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Trouble for /.?

    • Too many weak stories, the result of overposting caused by a shoddy revenue model
    • Too many of those are dupes
    • A moderation system that promotes closed-minded groupthink and usenet-style trolling, driving away interesting debate and discussion



    Hmmm... looks bad... VA should start shopping this jalopy around...

  11. Bah to others.. by grub · · Score: 3, Funny


    And other engines such as WiseNut, Teoma, and FAST now mimic Google's 'popularity placement technology.'"

    Yeah but they don't have those leet google doodles for various holidays and events..

    --
    Trolling is a art,
  12. google, wonderful by scovetta · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Google has IMHO the best search-engine technology around. However, the time is coming for more intelligent engines--content based searching is around the corner, and I'm sure that development is being done at Google. I want to search for pictures by content (not by filename). I want a larger set of query commands (NEAR, etc). Kartoo has an intuitive (and addicting) interface, and the ties it generates are... cool.
    I don't think google losing some contracts will mean very much. Anyone can piggy back off of them, and if they can make a better product, more power to them, but I think google is around to stay.
    Any word on an IPO?

    --
    Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
    1. Re:google, wonderful by LostCluster · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Any word on an IPO?

      That'll be the end of Google if that happens. If it does, buy it if you can get into it early on the first day, sell it in the afternoon and then never touch it again.

      Google is governed by the rules of designing the best product for the users, and then profits will take care of itself. If they ever got profit-minded ownership, the distingishing feature of having user-friendly ads only will quickly go away because of the demands of investors who'd rather a short term big surge instead of a slow but long and steady return.

    2. Re:google, wonderful by MagikSlinger · · Score: 2
      Kartoo has an intuitive (and addicting) interface, and the ties it generates are... cool.

      I have a problem with a search engine that wants to use Flash as its interface.

      --
      The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
    3. Re:google, wonderful by thogard · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If Google IPOs then its time to start over again. A search engine can only work well in some enviroments and if Google is a public company, they won't have the ability to do some of the things they are doing now.

      Remember altavista used to be av.dec.com and then it was moved into its own company and then it started to suck when they had to keep the thousands of stock holders happy. Googles current owners should look at the long term and hold on to what they have and let it run the way it has been running.

    4. Re:google, wonderful by Fastball · · Score: 2
      That'll be the end of Google if that happens. If it does, buy it if you can get into it early on the first day, sell it in the afternoon and then never touch it again.

      You mean buy early on the first day, then sell a half hour later. Why wait until everybody is dumping the stock? Buy early. Sell earlier.

  13. What I'd like to know by TerryAtWork · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Is whatever happened to Alta Vista. Remember when they ruled the search engine universe?

    I first heard of Google when I got a semi-hysterical letter from Assembler God Steve Gibson raving about it.

    I didn't abandon AV until after their second edition of Personal Alta Vista insisted on using my browser (where the first edition used a little window) and engendered a whole bunch of 505 errors and became useless.

    They HAD to add a layer of complexity... :-(

    So whatever DID happen to Alta Vista?

    --
    It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
    1. Re:What I'd like to know by prisoner · · Score: 2

      who knows but being a part of DEC, they went to Compaq when DEC was sold and then Compaq went to HP so there probably wasn't much focus on making it work. Back in the .com days, i remember hearing people saying that Compaq bought DEC just to get AV.

    2. Re:What I'd like to know by divide+overflow · · Score: 4, Informative

      [What I'd like to know is] whatever happened to Alta Vista. Remember when they ruled the search engine universe?

      The relevant history can be found here. AltaVista was probably the single biggest casualty of Google...prior to Google it had the largest index of webpages. But Google did a better job of indexing and presenting the content for people's needs, then the index became the largest on the web. AltaVista lost the race, so much so that most people nowadays have never even heard of AltaVista.

    3. Re:What I'd like to know by Roosey · · Score: 4, Interesting

      There's an article that describes its demise pretty well here.

      It tried to be a "portal site," only it wasn't a very good one at all. Botched implementation, a cluttered site and a search engine left unimproved sent a lot of users fleeing over time.

      I guess they learned their lesson, albeit too late. If you look at their site now as compared to their site in 2000 you can see a significant difference.

    4. Re:What I'd like to know by MyHair · · Score: 2

      I quit using AV before it went haywire. It used to be my favorite for searching for obscure things like screen-printed numbers off of an IC to figure out what it was. It used to be the most complete and up-to-date search engine, but the result ordering seemed random and for searching common terms I had to wade through several pages and surf several sites before I found what I want.

      I actually used Yahoo! for quite a while; for some reason whenever I needed to search it was for a company's web site or something that Yahoo! was likely to have cataloged.

      I used Google Groups after they bought out DejaNews, but I didn't use the Google web search until I started reading Slashdot and it seemed the de facto geek search engine. I love it now.

      I can't remember what I was using after AV and before Google for searches that weren't Yahoo!'s strengths. Maybe I just didn't need to find anything for a long time!

    5. Re:What I'd like to know by JoeBuck · · Score: 2

      Google beat AltaVista even when it had a far smaller index. With AltaVista, you had to guess a combination of words that would only appear on a few sites, or you would just get a bunch of crappy sites with a lot of "meta" keywords on them. You couldn't use common words, as you'd get just a random collection of pages. People forget, now, the amazement at being able to type just "linux" as a search term and getting almost all the canonical Linux sites on the first page. AltaVista couldn't do that, at all. By comparison, using AltaVista was kind of like using SQL: up to the user to think about how to compose a query to get a decent result.

    6. Re:What I'd like to know by bluGill · · Score: 2

      I disagree, Compaq may have killed AltaVitsa, but it was doing a fair job of commiting sucicide after that.

  14. Patents? by tweakt · · Score: 5, Funny
    And other engines such as WiseNut, Teoma, and FAST now mimic Google's 'popularity placement technology.

    If you can't beat em, sue 'em?

  15. Competition is good for users by The+Wicked+Priest · · Score: 2, Interesting

    With all the recent talk about Google becoming a search monopoly, we should welcome this. This will keep the pressure on Google to remain excellent.

    Oh, and I know this sounds a lot like the comment I just made under the KHTML story.

    --
    Share and Enjoy: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
  16. 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.

  17. PageRank isn't the only thing Google uses... by sgtsanity · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Google uses (at the last count I've seen) over 50 different factors in deciding what ranking a website should get on a certain search term. Part of their monthly rankings dance is rebalancing the importance of these factors to try to maintain the integrity of the results. Searchking's earlier lawsuit was over the effects of one earlier dance. PageRank is only the most visible of the components deciding a page's score, due to it's ingeniousness and to it being the only quantitative data released about the evaluation process (because of the google toolbar).

    Also, don't forget about google's wildly successful Pigeon rank system.

    1. Re:PageRank isn't the only thing Google uses... by stratjakt · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The ranking systems could be their undoing. The larger they get, the more people will distrust them. Pretty soon the conspiracy theories will start about biases, kickbacks, payola, etc.

      My point being that so long as people don't know exactly how the pages are being ranked, they'll eventually start believing that they're being forced to wade through other commercial sites and spam to find their subjects.

      Then along comes $NEW_SITE to the rescue with a simple, straightforward, easily understandable and demonstrable searching feature.

      --
      I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
  18. "Search Engine" Search by E-Tigger · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Google: 1, Google 2, Yahoo Yahoo: 1, Google 2, Yahoo Lycos: 1, Lycos 3, Google Altavista: 1, Altavista 2, Google Pretty amazing that Yahoo doesn't clock out on #1 on their own site...

  19. It's the toolbar stupid! by Skidmarq · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Why is it that Google is the only one out there with a toolbar that:
    • makes searches simple
    • allows them to be complex if you like
    • doesn't innundate you with spyware crap
    As far as I'm concerned, the other search engines can do whatever they want, but until they provide a reasonable duplicate of the functionality provided by my precioussss Google toolbar, I'm not switchin'.
    --

    "I don't think I ain't" -Thompson's Corollary to Descartes

    1. Re:It's the toolbar stupid! by William+Tanksley · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If you're using Windows...

      As long as you don't mind the name, Dave's Quick Search Taskbar Toolbar Deskbar rocks.

      Of COURSE, like any useful search utility, it defaults to Google; but unlike many others, it has a HUGE number of other engines, and lets you add as many more as you want, distinguishing what type of search you want to do by little features of your search (for example, if your "search" looks like a calculator expression, it'll just replace the expression with the answer; if your search ends with a :, it searches a dictionary instead of Google).

      The neatest part? It sits in your Start bar, not in your browser window -- so it takes up less useful space, and doesn't need your browser to be open.

      Oh, and it works with any browser, not just IE.

      I, of course, use it almost entirely with Google -- but this seems to disprove your assertion that if someone else had a nice search bar Google wouldn't be relevant. :-)

      Try it! It's good.

      -Billy

    2. Re:It's the toolbar stupid! by Skidmarq · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Hey! That is pretty nice...

      OK, forget everything I just said. I wonder why my Google searches didn't turn this up...

      ;)
      --

      "I don't think I ain't" -Thompson's Corollary to Descartes

    3. Re:It's the toolbar stupid! by arkanes · · Score: 2

      Handiest part of the Google toolbar for me is the interactive part - the highlighting & search on page functionality.

    4. Re:It's the toolbar stupid! by William+Tanksley · · Score: 2

      You're absolutely right -- not being able to use the highlighting and searching is a loss. Of course, using Phoenix I depend on interactive find, which is even MORE useful, but even there I miss being able to just click on a word and finding it.

      On the rare occasions when I use IE (my print-server-laptop isn't fast enough to make Phoenix pleasant to use), I enjoy being able to click to find text from the googlebar. But even there, Dave's Quicksearch gets the most use.

      It would be interesting if there were a way to build a toolbar or drop-down button for Moz/Phoenix which could intelligently grab words from search-like URLs which would be useful for grepping. It would possibly be even more useful if that tool could highlight them as well as finding them, but maybe I'm being greedy.

      As long as I'm being greedy, I'm going to post this to DQSTTD's Sourceforge page.

      -Billy

  20. This is good news by divide+overflow · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Competition between search engines spawned Google. Google did a better job, so it became more popular. If someone else can do a better job...that's progress. Google has a lead and name recognition. If they are smart and keep making good decisions they can stay ahead. Otherwise they will fall into the shadows as AltaVista did years ago.

  21. Kleenex is a verb? by caluml · · Score: 2

    Since when is that?

    I'm going to Kleenex my nose?

  22. Google helps decide popularity (such as porn)... by $$$$$exyGal · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Google is even used to see what scripting language is being used most by the porn industry.

    There are tons of "races" like that on the Internet. Google gets to decide the winners. Yes, it is just silly fun, but the point is that the masses accept google as the definitive source.

    --naked

    --
    Very popular slashdot journal for adul
  23. Gartner's priorities by sczimme · · Score: 4, Funny


    From the article:

    "Building a channel at the low end is miserable. You have to send people to trade shows where there's no carpet and extension chords are snaking across the floor," says Whit Andrews, an analyst with tech consultancy Gartner.

    Gee, I'm glad Gartner has a handle on all this business stuff. No carpet... the horror!

    Besides, everyone knows the E-flat diminished ninth is the most dangerous chord; you could lose a finger.

    --
    I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
  24. The way of the gopher by I+am+the+blob · · Score: 2, Insightful

    There was a time when I couldn't imagine using a search tool other than gopher. Then there was a time when I could type 'altavista' more quickly than any other string of characters.

    It is the nature of things.

    --

    All sweeping generalizations suck.
  25. Search by blackmonday · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Google's "competitors" are not. Yahoo is now a portal for email and stock quotes. Overture makes money by charging businesses for position in the search results. This is a different approach, because Google's search listings are not compromised. Ads are clearly labeled. Google is wildly profitable too, although Overture breaks a little better than even, hence so much attention by the media. Google has little real "competition", rather "imitators".

    Plus, on holidays they have cool little themes for their logo.

    1. Re:Search by sql*kitten · · Score: 2

      Google is wildly profitable too, although Overture breaks a little better than even, hence so much attention by the media. Google has little real "competition", rather "imitators".

      Do you have a source for that? They aren't publicly traded, so they're under no obligation to publish quarterly results. They might be profitable, they might not be - but the landscape is littered with the remains of companies who gave away their product or service for free.

  26. Google is by SomeOtherGuy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    At it's worse "google vs. anything else" will become like "VHS vs. Beta" or "MP3 vs. OGG". My wife and grandma both know and love google -- and even if a better technology comes along -- I can guarentee you that google will still command there attention. It was at the right place at the right time providing the right service. For whatever reason (dumb luck, quality) many people have planted their roots in using google as THE search engine -- and most of those groups of people don't pull up their roots that easily.

    --
    (+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
    1. Re:Google is by stratjakt · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I remember when Yahoo! was THE search engine. Now it's more of a portal, as they piled on the added services. I remember when Netscape was THE web browser, Wordperfect was THE word processing package, and CorelDraw was THE drawing application.

      What makes you think the same thing can't happen to google?

      --
      I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
    2. Re:Google is by adolf · · Score: 2

      You remember strangely.

      I remember when Yahoo! was an accidentally-complete list of links, well before people grok'd the term "search engine". This was sometime before DEC decided to fund AltaVista as a showcase for their Alpha platform, thus ousting Webcrawler from "THE search engine" position.

      I remember Mosaic being "the" web browser, though I preferred Lynx once I discovered it, because it was faster.

      Wordperfect was OK, after the PC's rise to near-ubiquity and the death of Wordstar alongside everything else, but I also remember using something called Displaywriter on an IBM box based around a pair of 8" floppy drives.

      What makes me think the same thing won't happen to Google is simple: They're steadfastedly focused on being low-bullshit, nobody does a better job of returning good results, and most importantly: My grandmother uses it.

  27. Cache? by Col.+Klink+(retired) · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And which of these alternatives have something like google's cache?

    --

    -- Don't Tase me, bro!

    1. Re:Cache? by Col.+Klink+(retired) · · Score: 3, Informative

      Hasn't happened yet. And they respect robots.txt and will remove the cache if you ask them, so I don't imagine it happening anytime soon...

      --

      -- Don't Tase me, bro!

  28. Honeymoon over? Think again... by Whatthehellever · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why should this even make news? Sure, there are sites that will mimic Google because they're good. Google is not the only site out there of it's type. It's the users who will choose which one will work best for them. It's good to see some competition.

    --

    ---
    IMHO, of course.
    May the SOURCE be with you.
  29. AOL 8 now includes Google search... by SirDaShadow · · Score: 3, Informative

    ...so I guess the honeymoon's still on! :)

  30. to google, or not to google by Anonymous+Hack · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I think one of the key things Google had going for it from the start was a funky, easy-to-say name. The marketing guys thought up a wonder there. Probably the only reason it has become "verbified" is because it's the only damn search engine that's easy to say. Remember when Alta Vista was the shiznit? Anyone ever try to say "i'm gonna altavistararaaadiddlyah some page"? It just doesn't work.

    --
    I got a sig so you would remember me.
  31. Competing makes for better search engines by acomj · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I mean seriously. Googles very good. But it still is hard to find what you need sometimes. Often the best information doesn't come up when you search. I've been sent links with information from friends of sites I couldn't find when searching.

    You can't expect one company to stay on top of anything. There are always companies that want what googles got and are gunning for them. Altavista was once king, as was voodoo and a host of other companies that have fallen from the top.

    I say good. Hopefully all search sites get better. Maybe better ai will help? who knows.. These search engines are important to keep the web usefull.

  32. Googling. by NeoSkandranon · · Score: 5, Funny

    and the fact that 'google' has become a verb (like xerox, kleenex, hoover, etc.).

    Since when was Kleenex a verb? I have never kleenexed something in my life. Perhaps the submitter meant Windex? I've never heard Hoover used as a verb either.

    --
    If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
    1. Re:Googling. by MyHair · · Score: 2

      Since when was Kleenex a verb?

      I Kleenex'ed my swimsuit magazine last night.

    2. Re:Googling. by pommiekiwifruit · · Score: 2
      "Hoovering" is a UKism I think.

      Myself, I use the word "Vacuuming" and a decent vacuum cleaner (a Meile) instead. Hoover (upright) vacuum cleaners can't clean wall-to-wall carpets, are harder to push around and are generally nasty. At least the ones that landlords provide for flats are. I don't know why they are so popular in the UK, but perhaps this is related to the lack of automatic transmissions here (only old ladies have them).

      The germans have purpotedly said (in a survey) "the british work the longest hours in europe. They make up for this by being the least productive". By e.g. posting to slashdot... oops...

  33. "WWW" Search by SiMac · · Score: 2

    A Google search on "HTTP" is a pretty decent metric of measuring the most popular Web sites, and Yahoo! is listed first.

    So, perhaps Google is indeed the most well-known search engine, but Yahoo! is a more popular Web site overall. I would actually trust Google's assessment over any others.


    Yes, but a search for "www" returns Google first.

    1. Re:"WWW" Search by LostCluster · · Score: 2

      What this goes to say is that there are an awful lot of hyperlinks that contain "yahoo" but not "www"... trans: Linking to a part of Yahoo other than the mess that it its present home page.

    2. Re:"WWW" Search by Maserati · · Score: 2

      On the other hand, that's a user's page at Kuro5hin and not a link to the *.cx site.

      I will NOT be repeating the experiment in google's image search.

      --
      Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
  34. Er by zapfie · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Wow.. so in other words.. um.. Google is competing with other companies in the search engine arena? Google is fast, has a clean interface, unobtrusive ads, a good signal to noise ratio, the ability to search anything from webpages to news to store catalogs, and a rabidly loyal following. I see no reason why it will be having a hard time anywhere in the near future.

    --
    slashdot!=valid HTML
  35. Analysts want more ads??? by fname · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The article is interesting, and it goes to show you how clueless you can be and still be authoritatively quoted in a major national publication.

    Is this logical? 1) Create fast, relevant search engine, 2) users flock to your service becuase it is fast and relevent, 3) add discrete, marked relevant ads, 4) advertisers flock to it. Some bozo in the story wants to add ste 5: Add bigger ads, disguise them in search results. He sees step 6, advertisers flock to it, but misses step 7, customers abandon it, and step 8, advertisers leave in droves. Hmmm. Can anyone say "Altavista." The reporter writing this article should have called this out, because it is so clearly misguided. Better still is a comparison to Yahoo.

    Well, let's see. Yahoo! starts out as a fast and lean service, everyone loves and uses it. They decide they need to add content. Then they decide to accept animated ads, flash-ads and pop-ups/ unders. Who loves it now? I use it less, myself.

    If I'm Google, I see Yahoo!'s trajectory very clearly and vow not to fall into the same trap. The whole concept of adding ads becuase there will now be public investors is ludicrous. Everyone uses Google because it is fast, lean and relevant. The people in the article who discuss Google adding morer paid listings do not understand Google's appeal. Once the paid, undistinguished ads start, users will flock away in droves. Personally, I'm convinced that Google Inc. is too smart to let that happen.

  36. Re:Google.ca redirect. by CashCarSTAR · · Score: 3, Informative

    Google I believe looks at the domain entry and uses that to determine your country of origin, more than likely for marketing reasons (yes it's true)

    At work we do not have such an entry so it takes me to google.com. Nothing intrusive.

  37. Yes it does... by registro · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Google may be great, but it is holding way too much power, and have been behaving lately like a ruthless monopoly, and has been doing a number of cuestionable things, like aiding the Scientology and China set up barriers to free speech.

    Google does 90% of the non-msn queries, and that's pretty close to controlling the flow of information on the Internet, something that certainly scare the hell out of many folks out there.

    To see other companies truly trying to compete with Google is really very good, good news.

    1. Re:Yes it does... by nmg · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Google controls nothing which is not their property to begin with. If Google becomes too abusive, people will go elsewhere. End of story.

    2. Re:Yes it does... by TheOnlyCoolTim · · Score: 2

      The Searchking guy suing Google is a fucking internet adman. The damn scum of the earth. His suit is a ridiculous money grab - he's even selling access to the legal documents.

      As for the Scientology links, whenever they would have been the result in a search, Google puts on a notice that certain results have been removed by the DMCA - with a link to see those results.

      With the China situation, Google has basically done nothing at all either way. It's easy enough to filter searches. Since they are in the URL any censorware can do it. Google doesn't have to help.

      Tim

      --
      Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
    3. Re:Yes it does... by Dun+Malg · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Just check for "porn". Do you really think Pornfurniture.com is the most relevant search item for porn? Following pagerank rules it should be way down to result number -3.000

      On what do you base that conclusion? The way Google ranks pages, yes it is the most relevant result. I don't doubt that more people link ro furnitureporn.com (you didn't even copy the domain correctly!) than to any other "porn" site there. I know I've seen links to furnitureporn.com in several places. I can't say that about ANY of the others on the first page.

      But they do manipulate search results, to force companies to pay for advertisements. That IS the TRUE about Google.

      So that's the "true" about Google, eh? And from whom did this "true" come? Please, substantiate your claims with a few factual references. Perhaps you have the URL to Google's "Secret Payment Page For Better Placement"? All I could find is Google's explaination of the PageRank system, which includes this quote:
      "And though we do run relevant ads above and next to our results, Google does not sell placement within the results themselves (i.e., no one can buy a higher PageRank). "
      Unless you can produce anything more meaningful than ignorant suppositions to support your position, I'm afraid I'm going to have to believe Google.

      jackass.

      --
      If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
    4. Re:Yes it does... by hkmwbz · · Score: 2
      "Ruthless monopoly"? That link shows someone who apparently bases part of his business on being highly ranked on Google! He is basically depending on Google to get free advertising! Shouldn't he be paying someone else to advertise his company and bring on money that way? I mean, come on, if you depend on google to get business, you know that you have problems.

      Google is so widely used because it works great. People are not locked into using Google. They use it of their own free will.

      --
      Clever signature text goes here.
    5. Re:Yes it does... by peter · · Score: 2, Interesting

      > Google controls nothing which is not their property to begin with.

      Who cares about property? The thing is, we depend on google to make the Web useful. Think about what it would be like without google. We'd be stuck with search engines like Altavista and Ask Jeeves. They're not bad, and I used to use Altavista before google came along, (I sometimes use jeeves for queries that are better phrased as questions instead of keywords). Still, they certainly aren't up to google's standards.

      The situation is like an electricity company in at the start of the industrial age. At first, big deal, it doesn't matter what they do. Once lots of things become dependent on electricity, it becomes something to worry about. Sorry, not awake enough to carry this analogy further. Otherwise, I might say something about gov't regulation, and whether or not it is waranted for search engines. (remember, just because something ends up a certain way because of capitalism doesn't make that way good.)

      --
      #define X(x,y) x##y
      Peter Cordes ; e-mail: X(peter@cordes , .ca)
  38. Is there anyone else who thinks... by onthefenceman · · Score: 2, Funny

    ...We need "Google" girls? They could have those neat t-shirts with the appropriate number of OOOOs...

    --
    Have you seen my stapler?
    1. Re:Is there anyone else who thinks... by stud9920 · · Score: 2

      Well, just start your www.booble.com business

  39. Re:Google.ca redirect. by Hamster+Of+Death · · Score: 2, Interesting

    When it shoves you over to Google.ca, look near the bottom and there is a link to google.com.
    If you click this link you get to the regular google.
    And for me after clicking this link I no longer get shunted to google.ca.
    Plus I think the results are the same no matter which page you go from, so you're not really missing out on anything, you just get a handy little option to search only Canadian web pages.

  40. Re:Google.ca redirect. by RoundTop-VJAS · · Score: 2, Informative

    The google.ca site is pretty much the as google.com except for 2 things.

    #1) it is a different server, therefore spreading the load for google.

    #2) it slightly boosts canadian results, as well as allowing you to search pages in canada only.

    I've used it for a while with no problems. I like it.

    --
    RoundTop

  41. Yahoo are *not* dropping Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    (posting as AC due to sensitivity of post)

    Errr, what in God's name gave you the idea that Yahoo were dropping Google.

    Quite the reverse is true, according to a friend of mine who just, oooh, happens to be a search engineer for Yahoo.

    Yahoo are furthering integrating Google into their search systems, and are toning down their old hand-moderated systems. I assume this last part is in an attempt to cut staffing costs.

    Yahoo have no plans to integrate another major search partner at present (except for ads). I know this because my friend would be one of the people implementing it, and we've talked about it, and he has specifically said it's not happening.

  42. yeah, if we ignore froogle images news & grou by *weasel · · Score: 4, Insightful

    cuz yeah, once you ignore how damn good, clean and fast google is, and then if you ignore images.google news.google froogle.google and the big kahuna: groups.google ...

    then if we ignore all the featuers built into the googlebar (still shipping for free without bloatware, adware and spyware mind you) ...

    and then if we ignore how tastefully google did the inevitable merge with advertising content. (no pop-ups, no huge flash ads in the middle of the results page : none of that crap) ...

    and then if we forget the reasons that Yahoo, inktomi and teoma botched their first chances (selling rankings, intrusive ads, no other added value, no usenet searches) ...

    yeah - i suppose if we ignore all of this data, we might think that google was in danger.

    c'mon - even when they didn't have competition to speak of, in any arena, they were still innovating. but /. only gets excited by the reactionary and the faux-prognostictors. that google has competition isn't news. saying that google is in trouble, and that's newsworthy is insulting to everyone who has a mental capacity (and memory) beyond a fruitfly.

    --
    // "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
  43. who? by kin_korn_karn · · Score: 5, Funny

    there are other search engines?

  44. Google isn't standing still by seldolivaw · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Google is innovating its socks off, with google news, image search, Google groups, and all the new stuff coming out of Google labs, like their catalogue shopping engine. I'm all for competition, but you'll have to be pretty amazing to make me give up my googling habit.

    (Hey, it is a verb. I just noticed...)

  45. I've seen all the praise for google, by Mac+Degger · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And I'd like to add to that: they're clean and simple; an epitome of website design.

    They're above all easy to use and the results are good. That's really the most important factor, period.

    Plus they're innovative and usefull, especially in their field: google images, google news, google answers; those are things which fit so briliantly within a searchengines core business that it's no wonder google does them so well.

    I think google will stick around for a while, especially looking at the direction, usefullness and insightfullness of their R&D.

    That said: if they start sucking, they're out. But that's life.

    --
    -- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
  46. Re:no spyware? by Lord+Bitman · · Score: 2

    Even if it can be disabled, I consider something that reports back every link I click to be spyware.

    --
    -- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
  47. Re:A common verb like *what*? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    FYI, hooter isn't a verb either.

    Although if a woman were to hooter me, I might quickly add it to my vocabulary.

  48. 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.
    1. Re:Er, no by JordoCrouse · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Don't forget Froogle (http://froogle.google.com) too! There always seems to be something new and tasty coming out of Google labs... :)

      --
      Do you have Linux and a DotPal? Click here now!
    2. Re:Er, no by Lord+Omlette · · Score: 2
      Privately held company. No Yahoo-style pressures for revenue.
      The IPO will kill that :(
      --
      [o]_O
    3. Re:Er, no by Jugalator · · Score: 2

      Don't forget Google Answers either. It's easily missed since it's in beta, but not at the Google Labs. The service isn't free, but seem to work well and you usually have your question, regardless of topic, answered in around 24 hours with a reply that would often earn a "+5 Informative" here at Slashdot. See mobile phones effects on devices for an example.

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
  49. Re:A common verb like *what*? by jez9999 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Nor do I ever hear anyone say ... "Hoover up that dirt".

    Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally? Because over here, in the UK, it's pretty much replaced 'vacuum' as a verb. People use it uncapitalized all the time. I frequently hear and see "Hoover up that dirt." or whatever. Maybe it's because Hoover was a much bigger brand over here??

  50. Re:MOD PARENT DOWN -1 Overrated by LostCluster · · Score: 4, Informative

    Wrong. A one followed by 100 zeros is a "googol". That was the inspiration for the name "Google", but they intentionally misspelled the name of the number when naming the search engine.

  51. Re:Hoover A Verb? by slickwillie · · Score: 5, Funny

    I think Hoover was a verb in the Great Depression.

    Like:

    Herbert Hoover: "Prosperity is just around the corner."

    Bum: "Hey, Hoover this!"

  52. Re:MOD PARENT DOWN -1 Overrated by GregWebb · · Score: 2

    That's a googol.

    --

    Greg

    (Inside a nuclear plant)
    Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!

  53. Re:Could somebody please explain... by Scrameustache · · Score: 2
    When somebody frigidaires you, you kleenex him in the teeth!
    Well known fact.
    : )

    --

    You can't take the sky from me...

  54. 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.
  55. Re:googles been going downhill by jez9999 · · Score: 2

    Perhaps googles time has passed and its time for a NEW king of search engines anyhow??

    Perhaps..... SearchKing!!!

  56. Groups by ravenwolff · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The feature I find myself using more and more on Google is its ability to search years worth of newsgroup postings. You can find a wealth of information on there which helps me solve 75% of the problems I run into as a network technician. It's actually made me pretty lazy. How is it that Google obtained this database (I remember news on it years back) and is it possible for other search engines to tap into the database? If not, then Google has it made in my opinion...

  57. Re:no spyware? by LostCluster · · Score: 2

    At least it's a pure info-for-answer transaction. You give them the URL you're looking at, they give back the PageRank value for that URL... which is a pretty nifty piece of info if you ask me.

    They also have the dream of privacy policies promising not to use the URLs you ask about for any other purpose, and letting you use the rest of the functionality of the toolbar if you don't want send the info it takes to use that feature.

  58. Google will have to stumble by Russ+Nelson · · Score: 2

    Google will have to stumble, or else someone will have to get A LOT better, for me to switch.
    -russ

    --
    Don't piss off The Angry Economist
  59. I shall never forget Google(tm). by exceed · · Score: 2

    Google was my first love, how can I ever purge memories of it from my mind? The others are wannabe's. They can't do what Google did for me. I shall never forget Google(tm).

    --

    void women (int money, time_t time);
  60. Re:MOD PARENT DOWN -1 Overrated by charon_on_acheron · · Score: 2, Informative

    "Yahoo" does not occur naturally in the english language, whatever that really means.

    "Yahoo" was a word coined by Jonathon Swift in the novel "Gulliver's Travels". A yahoo was a person in the land of the Houyhnhnms, but basically the yahoos were savages of low intellect. A discussion of the source of the word "yahoo" can be found here.

  61. Sounds like a challenge by seanscottrogers · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Lets give the old google honeymoon a run for it's money then. Can any slashdotter out there provide a search engine that yields (in your opinion) a more accurate result for a given phrase?

    Aside from a few specialized search engines, I hav yet to see more accurate results than google, which is arguably why google's honeymoon is not quite over.

    1. Re:Sounds like a challenge by sql*kitten · · Score: 2

      Can any slashdotter out there provide a search engine that yields (in your opinion) a more accurate result for a given phrase?

      Northern Light was as good, but they got out of the public search engine business and into defence contracting, IIRC.

  62. Google will never go away...... by greymond · · Score: 3, Interesting

    how could a company that used Dilbert as a mascot on their logo - ever have their business begin to slip?! :)

    Seriously tho - I think Google has a good chance of sticking around just because they have such a large user base - which is mostly due to the fact that A LOT of people who search for "things" don't want to look at a big pile of crap like Alta Vista or Yahoo (although I like yahoo's other features). But the fact remains if I want to look for "fish" I don;t want to a site like Yahoo that has hella ads and flashing images and links ALL OVER THE PAGE. I just want to bring up a page that has a field where I type in what I want and THEN get a page full of ACCURATE links.

    I think if google was going to start losing money they could very easily add on a "google-groups" feature and "google - email" and keep a significant amount of people.

  63. Cease and Desist letter... by pheph · · Score: 3, Informative

    Google has recently issued a cease and desist letter to Gewgle.com. Seems like their humor has run dry as well, as they no longer understand 'humor' or the concept of 'parody'.

    1. Re:Cease and Desist letter... by smack_attack · · Score: 2

      That's because you have no concept of parody or satire. I have received no trouble from either United Media or Google after I did a parody of the google/dilbert logo week.

    2. Re:Cease and Desist letter... by smack_attack · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Changing the wording of their logo like that makes it appear that you are trying to capture misspelled traffic for your own benefit. I fail to see how it was in any way a parody aside from the changing of the letters and hawking your links and providing an interface to their engine that can easily be construed as "intentionally confusing" to users.

    3. Re:Cease and Desist letter... by smack_attack · · Score: 2

      Please note the irony in using the google cache to display a site that has been served a cease and desist from google. Google should just delete your domain from their database or modify your listing so it always goes back to them.

    4. Re:Cease and Desist letter... by glesga_kiss · · Score: 2
      Google has recently issued a cease and desist letter to Gewgle.com

      They also did the same to Amazon Light, who's first version of the site basically was Amazon with a google-like front end.

      Very basic page, very similar logo, and the results of your searches were very much in google's style. There is a screen capture of the original layout and the explaination in their own words here.

    5. Re:Cease and Desist letter... by Ninja+Programmer · · Score: 2
      • I fail to see how it was in any way a parody aside from the changing of the letters and hawking your links [216.239.39.100] and providing an interface to their engine that can easily be construed as "intentionally confusing" to users.
      Of you do. That's because you are a humorless curmudgeon who didn't laugh their ass off like I did when you visited the site to look at it. Hint: the fact that you might make that kind of a mistake in the first place is part of joke.
  64. Software patent? by ryanvm · · Score: 2

    And other engines such as WiseNut, Teoma, and FAST now mimic Google's 'popularity placement technology.

    Sounds like what Scubacuda is looking for is a software patent. If Google's process was patented, would you guys boycott them the way you do Amazon?

  65. Innovators vs. followers by m00nun1t · · Score: 2

    Google = innovators
    Everyone else = followers

    Google have a big bunch of super-smart PhD guys working on their new ideas. Everyone else is just (at one level or another) copying them.

    The only thing that would make me switch from Google to a another engine is if the other engine is more innovative - it does noticeably better than Google. I think that's a way off.

  66. Re:Google.ca redirect. by TheOnlyCoolTim · · Score: 2

    "Did you mean to search for" is great.

    It only comes into effect when your search returns no results, so it's not like you're missing anything.

    Tim

    --
    Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
  67. Re:Hoover A Verb? by slickwillie · · Score: 2

    A simple google and you would have discovered that his term as president was 1929-1933.

  68. Quibbles with Google by cheshire_cqx · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I really love google. I remember when AltaVista became a junky, bolated portal loaded with ads and cruft. Google was like a breath of fresh air--light, fast, and accurate.

    The quibbles I have with Google are the lack of more advanced search features. This is a design choice to keep thinks fast.

    Here's an idea: a paid subscription to Google (GooglePro?) to allow searches with pattern matching, term proximity, non-alpha characters (C#, .NET, 1.5" all stump google), date limits, etc.

    Keep the good and add more real features (more steak for more $, not the AltaVista disaster of artificial sizzle only).

    1. Re:Quibbles with Google by AntiNorm · · Score: 2

      non-alpha characters (C#, .NET, 1.5" all stump google)

      These searches work just fine. It has some trouble with ", but that's because it sees it as quotation marks.

      --

      I pledge allegiance to the flag...
      of the Corporate States of America...
    2. Re:Quibbles with Google by cheshire_cqx · · Score: 2

      Quote the google team:

      Google currently does not recognize search terms containing exclamation
      points, question marks, the @ sign, and other such characters. These
      characters are so common that including them in Google's index would
      greatly increase its size and hurt search performance. Furthermore, the
      use of punctuation on the Web is so inconsistent (for example, there's no
      obvious way to decide between Mr. and Mr) that including it in the query
      often does more harm than good.

      That said, we know that many useful search terms do contain such
      characters. We've generated exceptions for terms like C++ and are studying
      ways to enable search terms like F# and C/net. We'll keep your feedback in
      mind as we work to improve the quality of our search.

      For more information, visit http://www.google.com/help/refinesearch.html .
      Other helpful information can be found at http://groups.google.com in the
      http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&group=g oogle .public.support.general
      group.

      Please don't hesitate to contact us with any other questions or concerns.
      Thanks for your interest in Google.

      Regards,
      The Google Team

  69. 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.
  70. So what? by almightyjustin · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This seems to me to be a non-issue. So it gives you an Australian version of Google. So what? I went to www.google.com.au, it looks the same as regular Google, by default it still searches the entire Internet.... The only thing that seems to be different is the *additional* option to search only Aussie sites. The ads looked the same too (and if you get ads for services you could actually purchase locally, what's the downside?). I don't get what the problem is. In fact, it's probably better because you wouldn't get DMCA removals and such.

    --

    Omnes arx vestrum sunt adiuncta nobis.

    1. Re:So what? by harmonica · · Score: 2

      So what? I went to www.google.com.au, it looks the same as regular Google, by default it still searches the entire Internet....

      Great, but the German version, google.de, does not always give you the same results as google.com, although it also defaults to searching the complete web. This sucks.

      Fortunately, when I use Opera's search text field (which I use almost exclusively for search) I still get the international Google version.

  71. Try my online version by Leeji · · Score: 2

    You might also enjoy my browser-based searchpad (click on "Search Pad.") It's like all of those windows programs, but it's browser-based. That means it works on any holy OS :)

    --
    It all goes downhill from first post ...
  72. Umm... Kleenex and hoover haven't been "verbed" by iamdrscience · · Score: 2

    It's become a verb like Kleenex and hoover? I've never used either of those as a verb. Xerox definitely is a company name that's become a verb though. Another computer related one is "Photoshop" it's now common place to hear people say "he photoshopped that picture" even occasionally in reference to the GIMP, Corel Draw, Jasc Paint Shop Pro or another similar picture editting program.

  73. Re:Could somebody please explain... by zapod4 · · Score: 2, Insightful
    How the hell do you 'kleenex' something?

    I thought it was a noun.

    In English, you can verb any word you wish.

  74. It's Windows-based by K-Man · · Score: 2

    Looksmart is not looking that smart as it tries to port this thing to a Linux cluster. The NT version has had known scaling problems since the acquisition last summer. $9M got them a prototype, and they've been through two or three engineering directors since that time.

    --
    ---- "If we have to go on with these damned quantum jumps, then I'm sorry that I ever got involved" - Erwin Schrodinger
  75. Right... by houseofmore · · Score: 5, Funny

    "And other engines such as WiseNut, Teoma, and FAST now mimic Google's 'popularity placement technology.'"

    That's nice. My family mimic normal people, but most people figure it out after not too long.

  76. Great Wisenut.com results by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    After reading the topic I went to Wisenut.com and searched for GUI RESEARCH, I was looking for an iteresting thread that appeared on past July here at Slashdot:
    GUI Research - Is it Still Being Done? (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/06/21/00462 36&mode=thread/)

    Besides my interest on the subject I choosed to look for GUI RESEARCH, because I remember that I accidentally closed the thread I was reading at Slashdot.com, and having many webpages opened in my browser it took me some time to find the thread again. The first thing I tried is searching in Slashdot, failed, oddly I can't find the article with Slashdot's own search engine.

    I didn't easily find it in the browser History, because I had visited lots of Slashdot topics and other sites. To my surprise Wisenut has given me the article URL in second place!!! And if I set English as the prefered language, the link comes out in first place.

    Google.com shows me in place 92, a site that has a link to the thread, the thread itself doesn't appear in any of the 383,000 URLs that Google found, Wisenut.com found 144,913 documents and gave me right away the article that I was looking for. Wisenut.com also returned the site that links to the thread, in 9th place, as I said the thread itself came naturally first.

    Just in case, I tried limiting the search in Google to results from the site Slashdot.org, but the searched thread didn't come out either. 238,087 more documents than Wisenut and Google can't find it, weird.

    I'm not sure if this lame search demonstrates anything really relevant, and I'm going to keep on using Google.com as my prefered search engine, but I'm also going to keep an eye on Wisenut.com, wonderful results.

  77. Re:yeah, if we ignore froogle images news & gr by metlin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And don't you forget catalogs.google.com - although it is in the Beta stages, amazing stuff.

  78. Re:Hoovering. by minitrue · · Score: 2

    I've never heard Hoover used as a verb either.

    Come to Vegas. I know plenty of girls who can run a demo for you for a small price.

  79. Google is profitable by Animats · · Score: 2
    Repeat after me: Google is profitable.

    There's no reason for them to go public, because they don't need more capital. Everything they could do with more money (like advertise) would cut their margins. They may need to find an exit strategy for their original investors, but if Kliener Perkins gets too pushy, they're successful enough that their top management could probably get bank financing to buy them out. And maybe Bush will end taxation on dividends, making profit, instead of growth, look more attractive.

  80. Re:Where Altavista went ... by Junta · · Score: 2

    Well, that wasn't what drove them down. I used altavista up until google came along. Hell, it could be discovered that google does the same thing (which they positively don't), and while we here would complain and be shocked, some going to boycott, it wouldn't kill googl. Not so long as people get what they want, they won't care that much about the ethics. Would a lot of businesses be around today if the public had a zero tolerance for bad behavior?

    What killed so many search engines is that you almost never ever got highly relevant links in the first 2, 3, or more pages of results. What I liked about altavista was that while the order was as crappy as other engines, it tended to be more complete set of results. Google did it right, and is truly an example of the best technology winning out.

    --
    XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
  81. Re:sakler by buswolley · · Score: 2

    is there a way to p2p a search engine? I mean have the search server run in a distributed manner? Would this be too slow?

    --

    A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.

  82. Googles got my heart.... by WillRobinson · · Score: 2

    Or if need be can find one for me. I will always use google for searches first, unless they put adds such as above in my face.

  83. It's still that crappy, TODAY! by Augusto · · Score: 2

    So I decided to visit the redesigned altavista.com, and the results are almost just as bad.

    Search for java and you get this nice list of "sponsored" results;


    Java Cabana
    Our coffee beans come from all over South and Central America and each blend has a unique combination of coffees and a distinct roasting method.

    CocoBase O/R Persists Data for Java
    Get CMP, BMP, Session, Transparent Persistence for Java applications. Download free 30 day copy of CocoBase today.

    Marathon Technology, Inc
    We offer all levels of training in OOAD, Java, JSP, Servlets, EJB, NET, C/C++, Oracle, SQL Server, Unix, Linux, XML, ASP, VB, Powerbuilder, WebLogic, Websphere and are able to customize.

    Hands-On Java Training Nationwide
    Learn from experts. Instructor-led Java courses in 40 cities nationwide make you competent fast. Small classes jam-packed with info eliminate wasted time.



    Then you get to the "real" results;


    AltaVista found 12,729,380 results About
    Java - Commander downloads Download.com
    Get other Tools & Utilities downloads.

    News: java AltaVista News
    Chick-fil-A Standardizes on Together ControlCenter for Java Development dBusinessNews.com
    Oplayo streams video over Java phones Silicon.com

    The Source for Java(TM) Technology
    Advanced Search. Technologies. - J2EE. - J2SE. - J2ME. - XML. - Other. Downloads. - Early Access. Documentation. - APIs. - Tutorials. - Code Samples. - See All. Spotlight. - Industry News. - Web...
    java.sun.com/ Translate
    More pages from java.sun.com



    With that last one being the java.sun.com site.

    In google, that site is your first result.

    Incredible, THEY STILL DON'T GET IT!

    --

    - sigs are for wimps.
  84. Dethroning Google by Per+Abrahamsen · · Score: 4, Insightful

    All it would take is hiring a stupid CEO who would turn Google into a portal, or some future buzzword equivalent.

    Google is cool because their management have understood what the users wanted, and provided it, in spite of whatever was the "common wisom" among managers at the time.

  85. The Capitalist model works by AlecC · · Score: 2

    This just shows that the Capitalist model works. Altavista did well by outperforming previous search engines, but then got idle and tried to milk the market instead of improving the model. Google cam out of nowhere and knocked AV out by being in all ways better. If anybody beats Google, they can only do so by being better - which is great for us users. Whatever happens, we win. If someone outperforms Google - we win. If Google keeps ahead of the competition by providing a better service - we win.

    Actually, I think the Google management (including techies) are pretty smart. I don't think they ever expeced to rule the world. If they can remain the top search engine, but not the only one, they will sitll be very profitable.

    I know it is terribly predictable to bash Microsoft on /., but this focusses on the problem I have with them. M$ appears to want to be the *only* provider in the fields it operates in - OS, Office software and all the others it is stepping into. Apple, Sun want to be the biggest, but not the only, supplier in their fields. For the world at large (rather than the companies concerned), the latter is far more healthy.

    So a system in which Google has a number of hungry competitors on its heels is excellent for all of us. Particularly, if Google were to manipulate Pagerank for devious reasons (not saying thay do), you would have somewhere else to go.

    --
    Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
  86. Google girl! by Ninja+Programmer · · Score: 2
  87. Solution? by Dr.+Evil · · Score: 2

    Get a Google appliance and set it loose on the web?

  88. Re:MOD PARENT DOWN -1 Overrated by gorilla · · Score: 2
    "The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary." -- James D. Nicoll
  89. Re:Competitive. Heh. by pokeyburro · · Score: 2

    These days, you aren't considered "competitive" unless you are engaging in anti-competitive behaviour (customer lock-in, standards pollution, collusion, etc).


    Oh my. That's one for the quote book.

    --
    Lately democracy seems to be based on the skybox, the Happy Meal box, the X-box, and the idiot box.
  90. Over? Not Until It Stops... by Vortran · · Score: 2

    ...working for me. Teoma sucks donkey nards because no site will appear on Teoma that hasn't PAID to appear there. As long as Google continues to do what it does, (my web site continues to list acceptably and my searches return fruitful results) I will continue to Google happily.

    The day Google starts charging for listing sites or giving preferred search results to web site owners who pay a fee, I will stop using Google so fast my web browser sustains micro-fractures from the G forces. If worse comes to worse, I'll write my own bloody web search engine.

    They can advertise all they want. My system is pretty impervious to that crap.

    Vortran out

    --
    Knowledge is like ignorance.. too much can be just as bad as not enough.
  91. Re:Hoover A Verb? by T.E.D. · · Score: 2
    I think Hoover was a verb in the Great Depression.


    His name did become a prefix. As in "Hooverville" to describe a shanty town.

    I believe his name also became an adjective. I'm pretty sure I remember there being a term "Hoover Recovery" to describe a continuing economic malaise. This bit of sacrasm would doubtless have been inspired by his continual insistence that recovery was right around the corner. Needless to say, that attitude didn't exactly endear the man to the 1/3rd of the US workforce that was unemployed during the '32 election...
  92. I'd pay for a subscription... by stefanlasiewski · · Score: 2

    I use groups.google.com and news.google.com all the time. I'd be perfectly happy to pay for a portal-type subscription if I could:

    - Customize the news (Politics & tech section on the top. No sports or entertainment news please).
    - Give priority to certain news/RSSfeeds (slashdot.org , indymedia.org)
    - Keep a list of subscribed newsgroups, as in a newsreader

    I think that Google should continue to provide access to the raw information, but I want more ways to get the information that I need and filter out the crap.

    --
    "Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
  93. Re:Why do you fight if you are agreeing? by Sandman1971 · · Score: 2

    Actually, the post was directed at me, and not the IIS server that the search engine was using.

    But I'm saddened to see yet another Slashdotter using Windows NT 5.1. Surely you can tear yourselves away from the soft, familiar womb that is Windows....

    So we aren't saying the same thing ;)

    --
    It's better to burn out than to fade away
  94. The REAL old Altavista(.digital).com by Dave21212 · · Score: 2


    You have to check the archive for altavista.digital.com to get the original sites

    Remember the $3.35 million domain name dispute from 1997 ?

    --
    "Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin