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New Search Engine Takes "Dyve" Into the Dark Web

Posted by timothy on from the looking-for-porn dept.

CWmike writes "DeepDyve has launched its free search engine that can be used to access databases, scholarly journals, unstructured information and other data sources in the so-called 'Deep Web' or 'Dark Web,' where traditional search technologies don't work. The company partnered with owners of private technical publications, databases, scholarly publications and unstructured data to gain access to content overlooked by other engines. Google said earlier this month that it was adding the ability to search PDF documents. In April, Google said it was investigating how to index HTML forms such as drop-down boxes and select menus, another part of the Dark Web."

11 of 55 comments (clear)

  1. so... by u4ya · · Score: 5, Funny

    this will help me get more porn, how?

  2. Pay walls by tepples · · Score: 4, Informative

    The company partnered with owners of private technical publications, databases, scholarly publications and unstructured data to gain access to content overlooked by other engines.

    I know why the other engines don't index these documents: they're behind pay walls. As the second link points out, Google already indexes (some) PDFs, but that doesn't help if the site doesn't want me to see the PDF. There are lot of topics, such as disability rehabilitation and linguistics, that I can't search for without Google returning a bunch of results from sites that require a subscription but to which my county library doesn't subscribe. (A tip-off for these results is that "Cached" doesn't show up.)

    1. Re:Pay walls by philspear · · Score: 5, Informative

      It appears this website ITSELF requires a subscription, the "beta" is free, the "pro" is not. Signing up for the beta will get you a registration page, followed by this helpful message:

      "Due to the wonderful interest that we have received, we will be sending out your username and password next week.
      We hope you enjoy using DeepDyve, the research engine for the Deep Web!"

      Not impressed so far that they can't let me use the search for a week unless I pay them money. Don't fall for this scam.

    2. Re:Pay walls by z0idberg · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If they can't set up a registration system that can get someone registered in under a week then how good is the rest of it?

      And what do they need my street address for?

      Pass.

  3. You have to pay?! by LingNoi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't know about you guys but I prefer not to have to sign up or use the "pro" version for my web searching needs.

    In fact why do I have to sign up to web search anything?

    Besides this thing looks like it just gets in your way.

    Thanks, but it's not a google killer.

  4. More tits and boobies by tepples · · Score: 5, Funny

    They're also looking into indexing images based on whether they contain boobies.

    You mean like these boobies? What about these great tits? And would you tap that ass?

    1. Re:More tits and boobies by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) · · Score: 4, Funny

      So that's what my parents have been trying to stop me accessing all these years! But I don't see what the big deal is.

      --
      Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
  5. Riiiight. by He+Who+Waits · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's apparently not working right now. But give it all your personal information now, and they will get back to you.

  6. Re:Ignore. by MMC+Monster · · Score: 4, Interesting

    And I need to login even if I want to search wikipedia???

    Nice way to shoot yourself in the foot, guys.

    At least you should offer a checkbox on the search page so that registered users get the payed content and anonymous users get what's out there for "free".

    --
    Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
  7. Re:Ignore. by philspear · · Score: 3, Funny

    Consider that at least 75% of the browsing public never gets much deeper than a Google image search for "cute puppies," or some such nonsense.

    Yes, but you have to realize that some of that 75% is going to want to see MORE cute puppies they couldn't with just google image search.

  8. Google starts indexing scanned (!) PDFs by harmonica · · Score: 4, Informative

    The summary is a bit misleading. Google has been indexing the textual parts of PDFs for a long time. According to the article they have now started indexing scans inside of PDF files, which requires OCR.

    Google has been doing that for catalogs for a while now, but OCRing large numbers of scans obviously requires a lot more resources.