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Accoona - How Does This Search Engine Rate?
An anonymous reader asks: "How many of you have tried the new AI-based search engine, Accoona? How does it compare with the other big search engines (Google, MSN Search, Yahoo, etc)? In late 2004, the Associated Press reported that Bill Clinton helped launch the company behind the engine, which is also backed by the Chinese Government. The EETimesUK has another article which describes how the search engine is supposed to work." For those who have tried Accoona, how would you rate the accuracy of its results?
I'd probably have to google for it.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
What response do you expect form Slashdot members?
Why would I use a search engine that I never heard of, much less know how spell it's name. I have a hard time with Google and Yahoo as it is.
so I think it is a stinking pile of shit
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
I just tried it with several of our OSS project pages (which rank PR7 or higher), and Accoona doesn't even list the main project homepage well into the 4th and 5th page of results. I gave up after that. Google, Yahoo and MSN all have the project pages as the first or second hit, across all three of those engines.
Accoona looks exactly like Google does. I'm all for trying new websites, but Accoona looks like nothing more but a copycat. If they used innovation rather imitation to build up their user base, then I might have gave them a little more consideration.
It's meant to do all kinds of clever things - I took a look, even read the FAQ, and after a couple of minutes gave up. I couldn't work out how to make it do anything other than be a standard search engine that seemed to give worse results than google. A SE that I have to spend ages working out how to use isn't worth the hassle.
I completely agree. For me, javascript is a death-knell for Internet sites. (As are Flash, cookies, registration, DRM).
...
Oh, and for all the clueless webpage "coders" who wouldn't know user-friendly usability if it hauled off and slapped them in the head, all itchy at the keyboard ready to type such pithy clever-isms in response to yours and my posts such as, "Gee, the Internet for you must be a lonely place"
Guess what? It's not. It works just fine without your clueless webpages. It must be a lonely place for YOU, with all your 'leet Frontpage uber-"coder" skills, or whatever.
it has a nice feed and you can blog to it
How Much Did This Search Engine Pay To Advertise On The Main Page of Slashdot?
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
So, the company was helped with launching by a former US president, and the search engine is backed by the Chinese government? Sounds pretty suspicious to me.
Is very creepy. And the layout is a direct copy of google. Sooo...
"Everything worth innovating today will go to court tomorrow."
Just wait till Kozoru releases the beta of their search engine (supposedly mid-April, according to a friend that works there).
-=/\- Jizzbug -/\=-
I am sure it does its best to protect us from pesky, seditious, websites.
I tried a search with a two-word quoted string, and the first result had the two words in separate paragraphs. That's not good.
Worst. Slashvertisement. Ever.
"Bill Clinton helped launch the company behind the engine, which is also backed by the Chinese Government. "
that pretty much eliminates it from my book. As bad as google is, i don't my search engine directly controlled by the Chinese Communist party AND Bill Clinton. I imagine searching for Tianamen wont get you much compared to Google since it never happened...
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
I tested a few queries on it and it found everything I was looking for on the homepage. This is an interesting search engine though.
Slightly offtopic - does anyone have any information on how Google ranks pages? I've read this page which has some really good information in it, but does anyone know of any other guides on search engine optimization with google?
Granted, the number of pages indexed can be a misleading metric... but in the 20 minutes I've spent with it so far, I'm finding that a significant number of the pages I'm searching for are not in their index.
Maybe the things I'm searching for are a bit esoteric, but I think these guys are in for a serious game of catch-up since everything I searched for is readily available via Google.
You can have the best search algorithm in the world, but if your pool of data to search is smaller than the other guy, you're going to have a hard time of it. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see another player out there pushing Google, to force them to innovate more than they have. But if these guys have been in the business since 2004, they've had plenty of time to index pages.
Three of the top 10 links it returns for 'fascism' refer to GW Bush and his corrupt, incompetent administration. I think this search engine is better than you think.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Now someone just needs to make a search engine called "Matata", and we'd have no worries for the rest of our days.
I did a search for my full name which appears on my blog, yet it couldn't find it! I tried a few other searchs and the coverage of my blog seems pretty useless all round.
It also doesn't seem to accept double-quotes to indicate phrases, which is a very important feature for me!
I'd say it works great.
My homepage has the #1 ranking when I do an ego-search using my name.
I'm a little skeptical. A search engine with a smiley in its logo? That's so 1999! But the FAQ puts me into an even more pessimistic mood. IMHO this Accoona thing is just lots of marketing speak, but doesn't really offer anything new, neither from the usability nor from the technology point of view.
To quote from the FAQ:
As far as I can see, this means that
Ah, and one last thing. Accoona doesn't have "teh snappy". It's just too damn slow. And I'm not waiting for search engines EVER AGAIN.
You anti-javascript types seem really bitter. You can code all your functionallity in CGI if you want, but to abandon javascript and cookies. How do you have user accounts without cookies? Log in every page refresh? Use Apache authentication? That pop up user id/password is ugly, it blocks your site unless you have an account and it has no "log out" method. I just don't see anything beyond static web content with js and cookies unless it's horribly over programmed on the server side.
Since I have the "No Script" extension installed. It would seem to me that if they are going to go for the simplistic look of google they ought to work without javascript. Also, why not a firefox tool bar? I doubt it would have been any harder to create than the one they offer for windows. Probably easier.
it gets points in the "trying to look like google department", but good grief. i accoona my name (not a catchy verb), and my personal web site on travel info comes up number one, but my ALA article is number 21. Number two for my name is a paper i wrote in high school that i uploaded to a local bbs that's now on the web (a listing that i've blocked from google results for my name)
all in all, i'd say it's not as smart as google
The face is scary.
Connections with Bill makes me think connections with the government.
The direct copy cat interface of google, reminds of recent requests for google searches from the DOJ.
All in all, I find the search engine scary, and won't use it. I just can't get over the fealing that it might be an instrument of big brother, and the AI isn't to get better search results, but to analyse the search itself.
Never heard of this search before, but it's gotta be awesome: my site came up first when I search for 'BTEG'.
Take THAT Black Training and Enterprise Group!
BytesTemplar.com
also, searching for my alias loteck on google gives me an ego boost, accoonaing my nickname wants to sell me bad techno, it would appear.
Yeah, thats right. "Accoonaing"? Never gonna happen.
Best live.com! Why? It got past the loading stage. I'm glad they chose a light and simple interface. Speedy as hell even under a /.'ing. Maybe they don't index as much as google yet but the search itself seemed reasonable. Google really shines when it comes to finding obscure things.
----
Go canucks, habs, and sens!
An anonymous shill asks, "Try our search engine! Please!!"
1. They do not show you the link under each results, they only show you the domain. So in the quick search that I did I ended up with a ton of results at the same domain, but can't tell which one is which.
2. I figure ok, I'll just mouse over the link to see where it goes to... NOPE, does not work.
3. It's definitely missing a lot of links. In searching for something that I am familiar with the results, namely my own name in quotes, I get 28 results from Accoona, as compared to 137 from google (all valid).
and these are just the things I noticed in the first 10 seconds.
I tried a few searches before realizing the lack of a cache made many of the results useless. The engine spits back a tiny portion of the page, but there's no guarantee that page hasn't moved or changed. For example, for dynamic pages such as the slashdot front page, the engine incorrectly indexes it. Clicking on the link takes you to a new and updated version of the page, devoid of the original search term that brought you there. This was okay 5 or 6 years ago before Google went mainstream, but now I tend to click on caches about half the time I search since the main link is often not relevant.
Ya, I'd have to say accoona, has a long way to go. I did a simple search for "Aaron C. Berg" and I got a resume from a geocities page. Now granted that is mine but it is also about 5 years old. Google returns 64 URL's which details my online presense for the last 8 years where I used my name. MSN.com returned 5 and Yahoo returned 15. Google wins again. None of the search engines found aaronberg.org. :-(
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
Acoona.....any relation to muhtattah?
oh, what a wonderful thing.
Purple, because ice cream has no bones.
So I read this little press release and I wasn't that impressed. You want to talk about context parsing? Google started that type of search innovation. Not commonly known is that Google even suppresses ads when it guesses its users are searching without any intentions of making purchases, such as for research. This is illustrated here:
Search Argentina
Search Population
Search Both (no ads)
I'd say that's pretty contextual if you ask me. This search engine is a bunch of hype, and much farther behind than it thinks.
So it seems that a double o is the marker for search engines.
Google, Yahoo, Accoona
Other markers I've noticed are that hamburger joints are yellow and red, and that ED drugs must end in -a.
Accoona presently isn't rated by "SearchEngineWatch.com" ... Therefore, it goes at the bottom of the list.
1. Google
2. Yahoo
3. AskJeeves
4. AllTheWeb
5. AolSearch
6. HotBot
7. Teoma
8. AltaVista
9. GigaBlast
10. LookSmart
11. Lycos
12. MSN Search
13. Netscape Search
14. DMOZ
(...15-99...)
100. Accoona
Yep. I think it might register as a minor roadbump in Google's quest to take over the world.
Just add {In Space!} to anything.
Am I the only one that read that as an A1-based search engine? I couldn't think what steak sauce, even fantastic steak sauce, could bring to search engine technology, though I'm sure it would be delicious. Oh well, another dream dashed.
Whatever the technology behind it, you won't get me to try a new search engine by talking about the technology behind it. You need to tell me exactly how my search results will differ from what I'll get from Google. And even then you've got a tough sell. I used to keep a links menu for all the different search engines so I could refer to them in case I found Google's results unsatisfactory. Finally got rid of this menu: I rarely referred to it, and when I did, I never got any hits that Google had missed.
If you've got a problem with what I've said, you're welcome to reply. I signed my digital name to this post.
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
Did anyone else notice how mousing over any of the results shows that it links to overture.com? (Overture is now owned by Yahoo)
I'd say it works http://tinyurl.com/mzcs8
Sig cannot be found.
The URL "www.accoona.com" is listed as a spyware site by both Spybot Search and Destroy and by MVPS. Both of these modify the /etc/hosts file to map "www.accoona.com" to 127.0.0.1.
does it come with a free intern?
LostHobo.com
Soup Kitchen of the Internet
It's backed by the Chinese governement, but it can't handle Unicode correctly.
Something smells like incompetence here.
Couldn't find squish, my little web game, even given the hint that it was on ptth. Google finds 4 pages of relevant hits.
w c&charset=utf-8&la=en
0 &ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozill a:en-US:official
http://ptth.net/squish/
http://accoona.com/search.jsp?qt=squish+ptth&col=
http://www.google.com/search?q=squish+ptth&start=
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
You guys modded him flamebait? Observing that the site requires javascript and therefore is not useful to many Net users strikes one as insightful, not flaming.
When/if it does, you won't have to come here and Slashvertise to know it either, as we will already be talking about it.
\/\/oobie
I work for Accoona, so I am really getting a kick out of most of these replies. Some of you guys are very good at making it sound like you know what you are talking about.
But trust me.... You don't.
I think you just want to make yourself sound smart, when in reality you don't know what you are talking about. This is how bad info gets passed around. If you don't know about the topic....Don't make yourself sound like you do.
Isn't this the one that has a toolbar that is covered in spyware and adware? The kind that is packed in with screen savers?
In Soviet Russia, backwards is everything.
It's the name of a song, not a movie.
The song was first published in a movie titled The Lion King.
Trademarks can only be enforced against confusingly similar products.
This was true until the mid-1990s, when the United States and other countries enacted laws regulating dilution of sufficiently famous trademarks. As for whether a dilution claim will succeed, you're also assuming that Disney won't drag out the trial long enough to bankrupt the defendant.
Search for Accoona spyware (google or Accoona) and you will see how they advertise. This is not only spyware, but they are apparently spammers, according to Wikpedia. How did this get on slashdot? I am amazed that a site on /. is an ad for spyware. I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist , but is this the end of /.
Stay tuned for new sig...
Yahoo and Google are the only search engines that are considered successful right now... Altavista, WebSpider, A9... these have all fallen by the wayside. Why? None of them have two letter Os next to each other. Accoona does. I predict it will be a smashing success.
sig.
Using Javascript is fine but a site should work without it whenever possible. The same for cookies, Java, Flash, CSS, etc. I use most of these but I go out of my way to make sure my website's will work without them. So long as it tries to work without these then I'm all for using them as needed to provide a good experience.
I think some people are insane with their complaining about cookies. Cookies are essentially harmless and aren't at all needed by website's to track you. Unless you switch IP addresses between every request I'm tracking you. I know where you live, where you're browsing on any of my websites (or associated websites), know when your looking, and unless you've hidden the details I know what platform and browser you're using and often what spyware you're infected with. None of this requires cookies. All that info is easy to get. What is more effort is keeping track of your session data properly if you don't use cookies. It's a real pain because it forces me to either track you by IP or to pass around some stupid session variable.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
When you go to the install toolbar page, they say there's no spyware or adware, and they are bundled with Norton Internet Security (I would trust Symantec more than M$). Are the spyware rumours true, or just rumours?
Accoona Matata...what a wonderful phrase! Accoona Matata - ain't no passing cra-a-aze....
Use the 'find out about %s' link to go to accoona.answers.com, and notice the logo. Have they changed hands recently, or launched a whole new site?
"Cookies are essentially harmless" you said? Essentially?
If they can ever lead to harm, then they are always, for all purposes, fatally tainted. No user should be asked to try to figure out which are the harmless ones from which are the harmful ones. So which is it? Are cookies 100% never a problem for the user? Even the tiniest of percentages of a "harmful" answer means they should not be used. Same goes for java script or flash etc. Are you going to try to claim they are never harmful? Go ahead, give it your best shot.
You lazy coders defending java script and cookies and flash and the like are forgetting a few things. 1. Web page users don't want to be tracked. 2. Many of us are perfectly happy with a stateless web.
"Unless you switch IP addresses between every request I'm tracking you." Why? What a stupid thing to do.
well, there's this little thingie called a SESSION ID, that you can stick, hmm, lemme think for a second here.. OH YEAH, you could stick it in the URL.
Bloody hell, I'm a genious, aren't I.
I am SO cool I can keep meat fresh for a WEEK!!!!
have any of you tried http://clusty.com/. While people are suggesting, criticizing and all the rest, I suggest giving it a look. I thought was much more unique than Accoona and actually quite useful, though not Google (of course).
Bill Clinton helped launch the company behind the engine, which is also backed by the Chinese Government.
Yeah, it's affiliated with two obvious sources for true and unbiased information.
Perjury and oppression of the masses, way to go Accoona!
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
More proof that all this talk of web-2 is utter bullshit because the majority of web developers can't even do web-1 right!
Google is the future.
Google does no evil.
There is no Internet, only Googlenet.
Google made me the man I am today.
If Google says it's so, it's so.
I don't want to live in a world without Google.
Google for president.
We should pray for Google every night before we go to sleep.
If Christ has risen, He's working for Google.
Perhaps it is because Javascript is not available on every platform and we believe in accessibility.
All of my sites have Javascript in them, my latest even make extensive use of XMLHttpRequest, neither of which are REQUIRED to make it work.
FFS that web search is a text input and three buttons.
You display your ignorance with "Apache authentication" it is HTTP Authentication. But you are right about not being able to log out. It was not until the world of Firefox Extensions that such a feature was available.
"No password in the clear" was very easily available to the developers of the 4.0 browsers but they chose to ignore it, for shame.
> I just don't see anything beyond static web content with js and cookies unless it's horribly over programmed on the server side.
It is perhaps because you are blind.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
That's an interesting search because it shows that Accoona can't handle character encodings outside of 32-127. When you can't display é in your search results you have lost.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
I tried the search terms "ims nat stun" in Accoona and Google (IMS is a variation of SIP for mobile telecoms - it has a problem with NAT and STUN is a protocol which mitigates the problem). Google gave 14700 results, with the early ones all relevant. Accoona gave three (!) results, all from a single source, covering a single press release.
Note that all search results you click on is tracked by www21.overture.com on this Chinese gov't sponsored website... :-p
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
1) I haven't used (heard of) this one before.
:)
2) It's Slashdotted (no response.) Google can survive a Slashdotting.
Me sticking to Google.
Environmentalism is the new Victorianism. Everyone ties on a green corset and pretends we're virtuous.
Perhaps they meant "hakuna" (sp?) as in "hakuna mtate" (aka "no worries" in Kswahili).
I agree mostly, excpet for the CSS sites... EVERY site should work with CSS and not worry about anything below that. Flash is annoying, CSS is a standard and should be embraced, any browser that doesnt do CSS in 2006 should be retired.
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
> I expect this is a reasonable approach when you are searching for terms for which a lot of websites are equally valuable, but breaks down for specialised areas where there are "canonical" URIs.
The problem is that, after you've been around a while, you already know about all the popular URLs. There's your yahoo, google, the festering mass of crap that is geocities, slashdot, etc. and if all you get is the most popular site, you'll never find the useful minority of pages where the really unique information often is.
Perhaps they can tune this, but I'm still of the opinion that relevance should rank higher than overall popularity. I certainly wouldn't want a Slashdot story on some space vehicle instead of NASA's page on it, just because Slashdot outranks them in popularity (if not relevance).
True mostly, but not practical for text-based browsers, spiders, etc which are still browsers of a type. Sites should use CSS but be usable for these browsers too.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
yes, but remember, CSS is for design purposes. neither of those users really care about the design... they are still getinng the full content which is more important.
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
I've seen sites that were pretty unusable without CSS though. Brilliant types that insert important text with CSS and things like that or just have the default layout so weird that without the CSS it doesn't make any sense. It seems hard to manage such a thing but I have seen sites do it.
Long ago when HTML was new I planned out a multiple file method of webpage design that included a mapping file that would gather data from one resource, a template from another, a style from a third, and code, graphics, etc as needed from their own resources. I still think that kind of sepperation would be damn handy. XML didn't exist yet but I was using a custom HTML-like syntax to layout each file. It seems pretty silly to be spending so much effort on templating on the server-side when doing it my way would let users download a pure data stream they could work with in alternate ways.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
I hate people who say "mod parent up" but this really is important. I found Accoona via Spybot today while disinfecting a relative's machine. Oh, and yes... the search engine itself is rubbish.
"If you create user accounts, by default, they will have an account type of Administrator with no password." KB Q293834
Crappy result set. Artificial "Help, I can't find my socks in my sock drawer" more like it.
EpiAdv - if you like Pokey the Penguin, try this comic!
A quick google later... Nothing! Nada! Zilch!
/AZ-IMU\TH-
it sure ain't perfect, but at least it's different! www.dumbfind.com
... googgle, or what is it?
Same problem.