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Google is launched!
dpavlin writes "Google, my favourite search engine has came out of beta testing.
Press
release is also online. " Google's just so darn pretty.
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They managed to keep the interface clean while making it better looking and there's still no banner ads. --Sean
Used it five times already today, and all I noticed was a few extra colours in the goooooooooooogle bar. Really got to pay attention.
There's no point in saying -- but I will anyway -- that google has pretty much become the default engine for anyone who wants to find relevant results. Great stuff, and with a page that isn't cluttered with crap. Well done to all concerned.
I've been following this project since their first public beta test. I still think it needs some polishing, and a way to limit the duplicate hits that are mirrors of other sites. But overall, it is clearly the most powerful search engine, even if it isn't the most comprehensive or current. (for example, doesn't search usenet or newswires as Dogpile does. Fortunately, the caching feature helps to make up for the old links that have expired.
Work for Change & GET PAID!
The Web is getting increasingly encrusted with junky pseudo-apps that don't really do very much useful. Certain well-known search sites have evolved in that direction also.
I find that Google is just great at nailing down quick references to things. I type in "Georgia counties" or something for some work project and find pretty much what I need immediately.
I would pay folding money for them to keep it this simple and good.
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Bill Gates Is My Evil Twin.
Here's a link to a SciAm article that talks about Google:
e /0699raghavan.html
http://www.scientificamerican.com/1999/0699issu
Todd Stewart
Just had to add that little remark.
according to netcraft
Steven Rostedt
-- Nevermind
Yup, yet another software patent.
But realize that if Google *doesn't* patent it, someone else can, which would be even worse.
In the current context you can't blame a company for grabbing all the software patents they can, even the FSF is thinking of playing this game. It's how those patents are exercised that matters.
At least there really seems to be some clever innovation involved in this one.
Sure, they just launched the engine now, and they don't have clutter, or banner ads, or other cross-selling junk, but it won't last.
We had a local radio station that went commercial-free for months just to bolster its listener base. They, of course, started advertising because someone's gotta' pay the bills.
At Google, just like everywhere else, something has to pay the bills. The clutter will come, it's a fact.
-- I lived through the IPO Rush of '99
For all y'all who are praising Google's lack of ads, it doesn't take too long to find this page, which basically says that ads are on the way.
Don't bitch too hard, though... ads make a lot of cool stuff free (slashdot, yahoo, altavista, you know this list could go on forever).
RP
It's not really "completely broken and non-compliant HTML". They just, for whatever reason, didn't use any quotes in their tags. I imagine some coder got tired of escaping everything. It's not the best form, but at least it's consistent. I'm not aware of any browsers that will not render this properly.
----
We all take pink lemonade for granted.
There is no K5 cabal.
I am not the real rusty.
Waah....the relevance bars and the single click backlinks to referers are gone.
I miss them.
And what about this, while we're being sticklers? :-)
----
We all take pink lemonade for granted.
There is no K5 cabal.
I am not the real rusty.
http://www.altavista.com/cgi-bin/query? text ...
You could click on Advanced Search, too
You can still get backlinks. Use the link: keyword, with the URL you want backlinks for, and you'll get what you need. It is kind of a pain that you have to go through the extra step, though
Did anyone find the Linux search? I think the idea of seperate search engines for different content categories is the way to go for the future. There's so much crap and conflicts of context that it chokes the relevant information lower on the results set.
"I am not a number! I am a free man!"-- The Prisoner
"IANAL, but, AFAIK, Google could publish their algorithm, thus preventing (by `prior art') anyone else patenting it. Always assuming that the patent lawers etc are competent enough to find the Google publication."
On reflection, I think you are right. Maybe this is a case where a patent almost makes sense. If Google just publishes their algorithm, then whoever can buy more and faster servers profits from the idea, right? If yahoo implements google for example not many people will go to google's page.
I'm starting to think that the goal should be to reduce software patents' duration to 3 years or so. This is probably realistically achievable, and would maintain a better balance between encouraging innovation and spreading new ideas. Until we disconnect selling ideas from survival somehow it's hard to expect more -- real life isn't a gift culture yet.
Try searching for: So long and thanks for all the fish
You get a lot of links to to Douglas Adams sites, and other sites that have put that quote on their "We've Moved!" page.
However, the interesting link is the first one.... Yahoo!
I wonder if this is some kind of comment about many people moving from Yahoo! to Google for their search engine needs.
In fact, I used to be a faithful Yahoo! user until Google came around. Before Google, no search engine could beat humans cataloging web sites. Now, Google does a better job searching than Yahoo!, and you don't get all the other crap that you get on Yahoo!'s page. (If I wanted Britney Spears and Pokemon actions, I'd search for them dammit!)
Quoth the Penguin, "pipe grep more!"
Lets face it folks, no matter what the technologies the engines are having a *tough* time keeping up with the plethora of sites thats out there. A lot of the brick and mortar businesses, mom and pop businesses and companies that provide niche products are just getting online NOW. By the time these engines catch up with the new sites it would be a while.
Lets also take into account that even human edited directories are having a hard time. My vote goes for ODP the only "search engine" that I bother with anymore. They are turning into something that yahoo used to be in the good old stanford days.. a genuine human edited interface for joe-surfer.
Just venting some frustration over people go gaga over a google.
I applaud Google for it's visual simplicity, lack of ads, and query speed, but I still find that it's painfully difficult to use, typically spewing out only irrelevant links if the query isn't riddled with a special search operator every few characters. To try the "new Google" out, I entered a very simple phrase:
... and got hit with 1,202 links, notably Earthquake Information from the USGS, QuakeNet Technologies (a web developer), and a message board with BSP info from Carmack... on Quake 1. Mixed in there was a link to id Software's official website, which unfortunately is virtually devoid of anything beyond Quake 2.
Quake 3 info
So I tried to refine my search. 3, a rather crucial part of the query, was ignored because it was too common. This time I searched for:
Quake +3 info
It did better this time, but only marginally. The first result was a link to Mplayer's Quake 2 News, which despite forcing "3" in the query, was still the wrong sequel. The next was id Software (again), and then there were finally some Quake 3 fan sites, a FAQ, and PlanetQuake, among the links to ChubGam 3-D, which looked like Wolfenstein but on better drugs. Since the "3" was clearly being taken out of the desired context, I went back to refine the search again. I tried:
"Quake +3" info
Again there was a slight improvement, but the results again drifted to crap like Snap.com and something called "Boston chicks" and a site about Shockwave.
I'm not saying Google is crap... it's mainly just too picky and overdependent on a very precise query if its to return very precise results. I'll call it... versatile. But even the decreipt AltaVista returned hundreds of accurate results, at least the 50 first of which were dead-on; all with the original query. AllTheWeb performed similarly.
I think Google could use some work. Sure, it runs Linux and hasn't quite sold out yet, but it's still sorely lacking in the actual searching department. eh.
they have want ads that look like this...
Massage Therapist
We are tense from typing and in need of some gentle hands...
Google is seeking a Massage Therapist to provide massages free of charge to employees. The ideal candidate will be able to provide a full range of massage options ranging from chair to full body massages. Must supply own massage table and corporate references. Help us transform our hard working, tense team back into relaxed, happy Googlers! Google will provide compensation and stock options to the one with the magic touch!
Chef
The Googlers are hungry!!
One of Silicon Valley's hottest and fastest growing internet companies is looking for an experienced Head Chef to manage all aspects of our on site cafeteria. Job responsibilities will include, but not be limited to, hiring and managing a full time kitchen staff, cashiers, and dishwashers. Our site is equipped with a full service kitchen and grill with a cafeteria style serving counter. The Chef of choice should be creative and healthy in planning menus for Googlers craving a meal other than a burger.
The only Chef job with stock options!
get out them cooking pans and you too can retire at age 30.
+&x
On an unrelated topic, does anyone know why they have that Google/Burningman logo in their old logos page? I e-mailed them about it last year, but got no reply. I't love to know if there's a theme camp they do
Hit the search button, and it'll take you to some Netscape page. Then look to the left of the gray box, and you'll see the names of a bunch of other search engines. Click on Google, and then there will be a checkbox that asks if you want to keep Google as your search engine. Check it, and then whenever you hit the search button again, it'll take you to the Netscape/Google search.
90% of the time it's great, but sometimes I want to search for something specific and it doesn't always work. I was looking for references to "E-Business Advisor" (a magazine), and it kept telling me "e is a very common word and so it is ignored" even though I put it in there on purpose!
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
Enter "more evil than satan himself" and select "I'm feeling lucky."
Or you might try her e
Don't bookmark this plain URL:
http://www.google.com/
Use this one instead:
http://www.google.com/search?q=
It directly gives you the possibility to
choose the number of hits (10, 30 or 100).
After seeing their press release last night, I wrote in with some questions. However, now that they are /.ed, I'm a lot less likely to get a reply so anyone here want to comment on this?
:) Do you have a paper out somewhere?
/. moderates comments. I'm planning a voting system that will be built into my web crawler and also interface with winamp and other popular players, so you don't have to do anything special. Each person is connected in a graph to other people who have voted for the same music.
/. is that it serves as a public record to those who would try to patent it)
> First, let me say I've been using google for a while now and I really like the results it produce. I noticed you changed your pages today and included a press release which contain information about patents you are seeking :
"Google's PageRankTM technology performs an objective measurement of the importance of web pages that is calculated by solving an equation of 500 million variables and more than 2 billion terms. Google does not determine results by counting links. Instead, Google's PageRank uses the vast link structure of the web as an organizational tool. In essence, Google interprets a link from Page A to Page B as a vote by Page A for Page B. "
Coming from a computer graphics background, this technique sounds similar to
integrating radiosity form factors. Here, the surface of a world is covered with "patches."
Each patch reflects/emits light and/or heat. Because each patch can possibly reflect energy to
every other patch (directly or indirectly) in the solution it becomes nearly the same problem as you have solved.
Instead of using light energy, you substitute "human interest." Obviously you have to have some energy in the system initially before it can propagate. Do you give each site a constant energy and or do use popular hand-picked directories like yahoo?
In the CG world, progressive refinement methods can be done in stages with a time complexity of O(n) that quickly approach their photo-realistic limit in a few iterations.. There are many papers in the ACM SigGraph proceedings over the years regarding this topic, but I'm sure you are well versed in the area of iterative solutions to large linear equation systems. I'm am curious what methods you use? What is 1 unit of "human interest?" I assume you do not attempt to find a perfect solution, what error tolarance do you set? How long does a run take? etc, etc.
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I am starting to use a similar technique for MP3 "group filtering," somewhat akin to how
Music is identified by a music "finger print." The finger prints are calculated by averaging frequency components over the first several non-empty frames of an MP3. This means music can be accurately identified even when encoded with different encoders and at different sample rates (regardless of filename). Time shifting effects introduced by different starting positions become less troublesome because of the averaging.
The result is that you have a personal web crawler that can identify a song after a small portion has been downloaded. If the song is past a threshold of tolerance it won't be downloaded and you can optimize for your taste, bandwidth, and available disk space.
(one reason to post ideas on
-- Virtual Windows Project