Slashdot Mirror
Yahoo! Switches Search Engines
Giorgio Baresi writes "As several sources are reporting, Yahoo! in the last hours dumped Google and rolled out a brand new search engine mainly based on Inktomi search technology and Overture sponsored results. On Monday Yahoo! also launched its own crawler, called "Yahoo! Slurp", which replaced former "Inktomi Slurp". Hey, it seems the search engine war has begun!"
I think you mean, "Begun, the search engine war has.".
or does a webcrawler named "slurp" sound like something more appropriate for booble.com?
It's been live for about 6 months in some parts of the world.
I still have google results, but can see the new ink results by appending &tmpl=E088 on the end of the SERP url.
CEO: We want a search engine that evokes pride and confidence. Disgruntled Employee: *aside*Let's face it, compared to google it's gonna suck. */aside* How about "Slurp"? CEO: Slurp! I like it!
Gamers Europe - Gaming News. Reviews.
I love Google (the new deskbar rocks) and I also frequent Yahoo! for chess and Fantasy Hockey. What I want to know is this: why is being the number search engine worth fighting over? Other than selling services to corporations and little text ads, how does Google make money? Or more importantly, why does Google need to be the number one search engine to make money? This reminds me of the browser wars. The logic was, you owned the browser, you owned the 'net. And although you could make the case that IE won the war, how does IE being the most popular browser translate into money for MS when they give it away for free? I didn't understand it then, and I don't understand it now.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
Most people use Google as their default search tool, even a lot of those unsophisticated Windows users whose IE still comes up with the default MSN page. It's entered the vernacular as a common verb.
How does Yahoo! improve its service by switching away from Google? Unless they have developed an equivalent if not better search engine, which up until now no one has done, all they are doing is downgrading the quality of their service.
Thumbs down, Yahoo. Use the best tool for the job.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
Yahoo has gone so far as to imitate Google's search results design:
title: blue, size +1
excerpts: two lines
date: green, size: green, "cached" link: gray, etc.
Yahoo does not have a time stamp for pages, but everything else looks very similar!
Yahoo! has owned Inktomi since March of 2003 so the name change is cosmetic issue. As to dropping Google, it was only a matter of time. I'm thinking Yahoo!'s Paid Inclusion Services to their search engine technology is making a tidy profit. The problem? Their search technology still doesn't appear to be as reliable, accurate or quick as Google.
Overall, I'm pretty impressed with Yahoo's new search. It returned relavent results, and a little to my surprise that were different that what Google offered.
In the long run competition is good, and I hope that we yield the benefits from having two good search engines. Although, I'm still apprehensive about Yahoo's "paid inclusion." Which seems to offer misleading results to the Internet novice.
Check out what I'm trading
Reverse Polish Notation, he speaks in.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
> When will there be anything new from Yahoo!?
;-)
True. The front page still has that bloated good ol' Yahoo look-and-feel that caused the exodus to Google in the first place. It does not seem to be more responsive or more accurate either.
On top of that, did anyone notice they still seem to be using Google to retrieve images? At least, the result to searching for "$#@%" looks *very* familiar:
We didn't find any Web pages containing $#@%.
Suggestions:
- Check your spelling.
- Try more general words.
- Try different words that mean the same thing.
Also, you can visit the Yahoo! Search Help Center for more suggestions.
(I bet Google has those phrases trademarked, so they could sue Yahoo for providing useful clues...
Warning: OS detection will be MUCH less reliable because we did not find at least 1 open and 1 closed TCP port
Interesting ports on m1.search.vip.dcn.yahoo.com (216.109.117.133):
(The 1656 ports scanned but not shown below are in state: filtered)
PORT STATE SERVICE
80/tcp open http
Device type: general purpose
Running: Apple Mac OS X 10.1.X
OS details: Apple Mac OS X 10.1.5
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Just searched Google and Yahoo about "yahoo slurp". Guess which one's more accurate? (also, it's plainly obvious that Google can withstand /., but can Yahoo?)
On a related note, I was at my parents home this weekend. They like to use Yahoo for their searching. No problem, but they were complaining of popups. I decided to install the Google toolbar for them. The thought crossed my mind to install the Yahoo toolbar, since they prefer Yahoo, however, it came down to a matter of trust. When Google says they're not going to resell my information or track my moves, they've given me no reason to disbelieve them. But seeing some of the ads on Yahoo makes me feel they're willing to do anything for an extra click. I appreciate that they're in the business to make money, just as Google is, but Google just makes me feel more comfortable about it.
;)
Not a big deal either, since there's a goof chance my parents won't take notice the new bar anyway
It is sad that you have to question every motive and move you make on the Internet thanks to all the toxic waste that is present. One wrong subscription and your inbox is hosed. I made that mistake the other day. Fortunately, I used a throw-away e-mail address so the damage was minimal.
There seems to be some confusion as to what is meant by "paid inclusion". It doesn't mean that you pay to get your site listed higher. It means that you pay to get a specific page spidered more often. That's all. If you don't pay, your site still gets listed - and PFI sites don't rank any higher than non-PFI sites.
Before Yahoo got to the point where they could "dump" Google, they bought up Inktomi, their old search engine results provider before Google and Overture, the biggest pay per click ad distributor next to Google in order get to the point that they could even compete with Google.
As far as relevancy is concerned, think about how relevant MSN's search results were and you've got an understanding for Inktomi's results-- MSN relied on them for their base result set (after the overture/looksmart advertisements).
But here's the key-- Yahoo picked up Overture, who had just purchased both Altavista AND AllTheWeb-- Altavista used to be a killer search engine, and AllTheWeb is the best, most relevant search engine next to Google.. so Yahoo has really got a fighting chance here. Good news for competition. But the fact that Yahoo had to purchase up so many assets is just a sign to how strong Google is.
Now, keep your eye on Microsoft.
...unfortunately no one can be told what The Mat^H^H^HGoatse is...they must experience it for themselves...
I have written up an in-depth comparison of Google and Yahoo that compares the number of results that each provides as well as user experience. The link to it is: http://www.scifience.net/. I would have posted it directly here, except there are screenshots and other such things that can't be posted as a Slashdot comment.
Also, what is the basis of a search engine?
Well, the paper from 98 that describes the PageRank algorithm (as used by Google) can be found here
Theres a simple explanation of various indexing/ranking schemes here, but if you really want to get up to speed on research into searching the web, try looking at some of the papers from the TREC Web Track
Happy reading,
Dave
To answer one of your questions:
Does anyone know?
I would imagine someone does, yes.
Get your own free personal location tracker
But under 10% of Yahoo's traffic goes to their search sections: Again, Alexa.
My (limited) observation is that Googles dominance is limited to the area they are playing in.
My European websites obtain 90% of their hits from Google.
My Chinese/Japanese language sites obtain 90% of their hits from the local Yahoo.
The browser wars are far from over outside of the ASCII 1-128 area.
You made a good decision not installing the Yahoo search bar. I haven't bothered to read why exactly, but the Spybot -- Search & Destroy software labels it and/or its components as spyware.
For some reason, whenever I run across machines that have the Yahoo Search bar, this lovely "Search Assistant" thing that gives extra pop up windows when searching is on the machines as well..
I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous...
Hi,
here's a small tool to compare the search results of Google and Yahoo.
Have fun.