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Lycos: Can't Get There From Here
rockville writes "I found this from Robot Wisdom, then I tried it myself: when you search Lycos for Excite, Yahoo, or Infoseek, you get a pretty strange result " I guess I can understand the reasons behind doing that, but it still feels kinda wrong. What do you think?
Who'd search for infoseek in the first place? But it is also indictive of how they are controlling what the user sees -- and it's so easy for them to say "yeah, your web page can come up first if you give us money" to sponsors. Ethical? I dunno. Fair to the internet surfer? Probably not. Use a different search engine? Good idea.
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Apparently lycos didn't pay itself enough money to get search results on its own page....
click here to search for yahoo on lycos You get their page asking you to please consider them first. Read through as tears come to your eyes. Then- after they're done pitching to you, they finally say, basically: "Okay, if you still want to search for Yahoo on Lycos, click here. Guess where this link takes you? Read through again as tears come to your eyes....
I've always found it odd that people go to search engines looking for other search engines. Apparently yahoo is one of the most common search terms. If you do the monitor what people are asking on Ask Jeeves, you do notice alot of 'How do I get to the Internet site Yahoo!?'
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
If Lycos didn't include the link, then I can see people complaining about it, but since they do include a direct link to Infoseek/Excite/Yahoo at the bottom of the page, so I don't really see anything wrong with this.
That's a juvenile and low tactic by a company against another. It is tantamount to FUD,except that it has none of F, U or D in it...it is just a microsoft-like anti-competition ploy.
:)
though to give them a little credit, google is properly linked.
OFTC: By the community, for the community
Besides, any dip who can't figure out that yahoo is located at yahoo.com, or infoseek at infoseek.com, deserves what they get.
Conclusion: there is nothing to get your panties in a knot about here. The actions of Lycos aren't harmful or menancing.
And it takes you to the same page! Seriously, I'm not going to use a search engine that is so insecure that it has to plead you not to use the competition. A manly search engine would bravely give you the link, content with its superiority over it's competitors.
-lx
Um, what if I don't? Do I get my money back?
Every dollar of it :)
OFTC: By the community, for the community
Kinda reminds me of the Google search for 'More evil than satan himself'... anyway, how many times have you seen some clueless newbie go to Yahoo and type 'www.porn.com' or something in the search field? I guess lycos' move only makes sense... search engines trying to second guess the user is nothing new, this is just a vivid example.
---- I made the Kessel Run in under 11 parsecs.
A study of AltaVista's logs for August 1998 showed that "yahoo" was the 7th most popular query over a period of a few weeks. It seems kind of dumb for Lycos to do that, but on the other hand they are probably catching a lot of hits that way. There are quite a few people new to the web who don't know any better.
- Russ
Lycos is a cheap rip-off of Google?? That's like saying Macintosh is a cheap rip off of Windows.
---- I made the Kessel Run in under 11 parsecs.
Altavista gets my vote, hands down, for the most powerful search engine. Even if it has a dumb new portal interface, it can still get you exactly what you need, quickly and precisely (with a little practice, anyway). I say, why even use Lycos?
Got Rhinos?
eh?
:)
Lycos' been around a lot longer then google.
Doesn't stop google from owning you, though
OFTC: By the community, for the community
Are you looking for Infoseek?
We know you've been looking for Infoseek but if you really want to search the Web for the coolest, newest, best quality Web sites we hope you'll try us, Lycos: Your Personal Internet Guide. We're the world's best Internet search and directory. And we guarantee that you'll like us. You'll find the highest quality sites fast, and without a fuss. Just type what you're looking for into the search box found at the top of almost every page on Lycos and click on the Go Get It! button. It's that easy. If you're not sure of what you're looking for, we offer a comprehensive Open Directory and critically-acclaimed Web Guides.
Unbelievable! . .
Recockulous!(sp)
Overgrown link farms with blipverty interfaces like this. . .they should just change the prompt in front of the SEARH textbox to: PLEASE SELECT YOUR BLIPVERT
What's even more odd is that if you search for Hotbot, it takes you directly to Hotbot's webpage. What's up with that?
Dodger_
I suppose it is in a company's interest to not support their competition, but this is a bit much. Or is it? Would it be reasonable for, say, the New York Times to write about the New York Post? Does that ever happen? (I can't say, I live in Alabama...). Or does the phone book mention competing phone companies? I would think so.
I wonder if such directory services are legally bound to represent information like this accurately -- clearly they aren't here, and it's easy to understand why, but how far can they carry it? If one advertiser doesn't like site so and so, will they block it from listings? This starts butting up on some important issues pretty quickly when you get into such matters. Is blocking access to a document a suppression of first amendment free speech rights? Good question...
Of course if we all just used Google to begin with, this problem might not happen in the first place. But that's just my unofficial, third-party, no-name endorsement of their fine service...
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
...Or Northern Light. And if you enter "more evil than satan himself" you (more likely than not) get a hit for an article about Google's unusual search result.
:P
Not only is this contrived, it's rather boring.
-W-
Is it all journey, or is there landfall?
--Ellison & van Vogt, 'The Human Operators'
Search engines are such a part of the fabric of the internet that they've become taken for granted; you use them without really thinking about them. I for one have always assumed that they were agnostic in that they only analzyed your request in terms of finding matching pages. What's actually revealed here is they are analyzing the content of your request as well. This is chilling.
What other keywords are they looking for? What are they doing behind the scenes when presented with these keywords? I don't consider myself to be a privacy zealot but things like this make me wonder whether we truly know the internet as much as we think we do.
Hates people who have stupid little sigs
ignore my other dumb post, I misread a 4 sentance article somehow...
So basically this page that should be a service is more of a self-promoting marketing device. Suprising? No. Unethical? Probably.
*sigh* I suppose you could say that they have to make money, blah blah blah...but hasn't lowest-common-denomonator-carpet-bombing marketing gone far enough? Crap like this gets drilled into your head every day. I can hardly watch TV without my mind going numb. The web has become almost the same. Fortunatly I know where to go on the web where crap like this doesn't exist. Thats a Good Thing. The web can't be totally controlled with marketing like most other media outlets.
But don't you think this could a disturbing precedent? Part of the appeal of the web is the "you CAN get there from here" mentality. And you should be able to do it without getting preached at. Sure, this is probably harmless- but think about the way media companies tend to operate- I bet that within a decade or so, if major regulatory efforts aren't made (and they probably wont be) most major search engines will have parent company owners. Lycos could easily end up part of Viacom. When searching for another media company on Lycos, would you really want a sales pitch thrown back at you, and a long maze to navigate before finding your link? This is another rumble of something big- will the ethos of the web survive under corporate ownership? If the journalistic integrity of most modern multinational/subsidiary/commercial press orgs is any indication- it'll definately suffer FAIR ain't the best themselves, but they have the right idea...
I don't get it. If your not smart enuf to type yahoo.com in the address bar, you'll probably have trouble finding it in any search engine. Just go to google, and don't sweat the small stuff from the like of lycos or whomever...
It seems to me that this is the next logical step from search engines charging for preferential listings. It could get ugly.
Dan
What do you really think of Google then? I've personally always had much better success with google, mostly because it don't get as much "the same damn site 50 times in a row" problem. But anecdotal evidence is not useful- what's the stats: alta or google? Or are they each better for different sorts of searches?
We're the world's best Internet search and directory. And we guarantee that you'll like us.
If I don't like them does that mean I can sue them for false advertisement?
Contrast Lycos's behavior with Altivista, which, when confronted with a search for "Yahoo", comes up with a bunch of search results, and even has the statement "Could you please direct me to the Internet search engine", and a pop-up menu that has every search engine I can think of, and a number I've never heard of...
Their new look will take some getting used to, but think I'm sticking with them... (Though I'll definately flip though some of these ones I haven't seen...)
--Arcum
> But anecdotal evidence is not useful- what's the stats: alta or google?
/off/.
> Or are they each better for different sorts of searches?
More anecdotal evidence, really, but I've found that Google is much better for "popular" subjects and pages, and Altavista is better for the more obscure ones. Google is my primary search engine -- I love the nice clean interface, and hope they never change it -- but if Google doesn't find anything, I go to Altavista -- with images
In philosophy and law, there's the concept of "content neutrality". To condense it down to its core, it basically means that busineses and structures don't care *what* they're working with; they merely work with whatever the customer provides.
In computing terms, most processes that take data in from a pipe are content neutral--it doesn't matter what you toss into mmencode, or tr, or mail. The apps perform a function on content--whatever that content happens to be is irrelevant.
The key to Content Neutrality is consistency. It's not enough to merely be "sometimes" or "usually" neutral.
Content Neutrality forms the protective construct in law that insulates from liability, for example, web site providers for the contents of their customer's web pages, email providers for the words and possible contraband relayed blindly over their networks, and telephone companies from being liable for bomb threats made over their lines.
If web site providers constantly monitor any of their sites, they're liable to constantly monitor all of them. The same goes for voice and email providers, who would quickly go out of business if they had to make sure no contraband speech passed over their lines. Telephone providers do not monitor any lines for contraband--that's not their job. Making sure a line exists is.
Content Neutrality gives the information industry it's primary shield against those who would exploit their infrastructure to blindly suppress both the criminal and the innocent.
Content Neutrality is also the only thing protecting the entire search engine industry from instant extinction.
What happens if I find a kiddie porn site through Google(as far as I can tell, it can find anything)?) What happens when some 12 year old kid at the local library finds www.whitehouseinterns.com off Yahoo? Or when anyone picks a song off of mp3.lycos.com? (Half of the Lycos employees who are reading this just went ghost pale.)
By preventing searches for site competitors from bringing up standard spider results, Lycos is accepting the role of gatekeeper, verifying that users aren't going to be led anywhere they shouldn't be led.
This Is Not A Position Lycos Wants To Be In!!!
Such a precedent means that Lycos would have to proactively verify the age of those who find sex sites through their search engine--after all, young children shouldn't be led to X rated sites. It means that Lycos could be held responsible for guiding people to fan sites--after all, illicit photography scanned from magazines should not be republished. Anything and everything Lycos does would have to go through an insurmountable gauntlet of legal checks before a return could be allowed, all because Lycos chose to sacrifice their content neutrality for the sirens of market share and myopia.
This is no joke. Content Neutrality is the reason why you can call MCI via AT&T Long Distance and ask them to change your service, rather then having your call redirected to a Ma Bell hard sell sales associate.
Somebody needs to slap Lycos's lawyers around a bit--someone fell asleep at the wheel.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
You are all worked up that you cant find Yahoo in Excite and vise versa with all the serch engines. I ask this, whats the big deal? If you are typing "Yahoo" in Exite your plain slow, just type "WWW.Yahoo.Com" in your adress bar. The URL is self named, that applies to all the search engines. "WWW.Excite.Com" If you know where your trying to go, just type it in the adress bar.
"A true friend stabs you in the front."
After not noticing that I'd been automatically redirected to the German Lycos site, and finding that I could find German Yahoo, Infoseek and so on, I wondered what all the fuss was about.
I then confirmed the "humorous messages" effect by going here US Lycos.
Are the people in America having fun, or are they being misguided.
Regards
J Williamson
I use Google for everything anyway...who needs Lycos? :-)
Seriously, if you don't know where to find Yahoo, it's time to pull the friggin' plug. I'm not one of those hardliners, either. I'm all for newbie accessibility. But you've gotta start somewhere. If you can't get to www.yahoo.com, forget it.
</RANT>
Oh, BTW, we've all seen people put hostnames in search engines, haven't we? Isn't that the funniest thing? I remember seeing my wife typing "www.lifetimetv.com" in a Yahoo! search box...
RP
"You'll find the highest quality sites fast, and without a fuss." I'd call this garbage a fuss. What else could anyone possibly call it? Again- not a big deal at all- but possibily portentious of policy to come.
well i was logged in when i sent "why not?" but it still registered me as an AC. anyway, my nick is Bastian for all those who would be annoyed by AC status.
That's probably because Hotwired owns Hotbot, and Hotwired was recently bought and is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Lycos.
[Seoman] "A conclusion is simply the place where you got tired of thinking."
try a search for "the source of evil" on google.
despite what all you naysayers claim, I still think google is the best search engine around =)
its always funny till someone gets hurt, then its absolutely hilarious
I used to like metacrawler but then they went too commercial.
They drop you right off at hotbot.com, no questions asked. Weirdness.
...so I do not care about Yahoo...
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
Well, I'm sure you all know that if you search for "More evil than Satan" on Google, you will get this place as the top hit. But did you know that searching for The best porn on the Internet will list these guys as the top hit, and their friends as the third hit. Well it amused me, in any case.
--
Try searching for the phrase infoseek. I.e.,
enter "infoseek" with the quotes. Works like
a charm.
Thomas S. Howard
A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man -Jebediah Springfield (a.k.a. Hans Sprungfeld)
Long long ago, in a different job, I used FrameMaker. It marked "InterLeaf" and "PageMaker" (competing DP software) as spelling mistakes and offered "FrameMaker" as the "correct" alternative. I believe that at least one of the other two also did this.
---- Backwards compatible -- If it's not backwards it's not compatible
Do people actually do this?
The whole purpose of Lycos is that they're the first place you go to get somewhere else, with a few vanilla web tools like chat and e-mail to keep you around and show you a few more ads.
You gotta figure most websites compete with Lycos directly or indirectly for features and/or eyeballs one way or another. So why send users ANYWHERE without a strong warning that they're leaving your beautiful Lycos.com?
Because it'd be a pretty effing stupid portal, that's why.
Many months ago, I went to the trouble of submitting my Web site (the same URL as above) to all the major search engines, including Lycos. Several months later, I decided to see which engines could find me. I typed in the fairly unique keyword ewhac and waited to see what happened. All of them turned up reasonable results.
...Except Lycos. After typing in a few other phrases unique to my Web pages, I determined that Lycos somehow failed to index my site after several months. I went to their "Add Your Site" page to re-submit it, and found they have a feature to determine if your page is already indexed. I entered my URL, and Lycos replied, "Yeah, sure, we know about your site," and displayed the correct <TITLE> of the page.
I see. So Lycos will collect URLs, but not actually do anything with them. Cute.
As I was writing this message, I decided to see if anything had changed. I did some keyword searches, but my Web site still didn't turn up. So I returned to the "Add Your Site" page, and checked to see if they still knew about my site. Here's the response I received:
Nowhere on Lycos could I find a description of their index criteria. My cynical nature suspects that their criteria involve money. Who knows how many other useful or interesting pages they have deliberately failed to index?
Lycos is a bullshit scam. Avoid it. Google has always worked better for me, anyway.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
I second that vote for Google. I was a die-hard Altavista fan, and actually remember being excited when it was launched. Now I hardly use it at all. Its only advantage over Google is the advanced search features that help you separate the wheat from the chaff.
On the other hand, Google finds what I want quickly. Today I taught someone how to "Search the Web" and showed them Google first. Next up was a trip through Yahoo and a passing mention of AltaVista. Two years ago I had to explain AltaVistas search syntax and do some handholding. Now all that I have to do is point them to Google, bookmark it, and say that it works pretty much like you would think it would. KISS HTH HAND
-BW
Anyway, I find that I never find what I'm looking for with AltaVista. For all the hits that turn up, greater than 90% of the hits are totally worthless (although I haven't used it recently, because of this experience).
Google usually turns up with what I am looking for with the first hit. *shrugs*
Then again my absolute favorite search engine is freshmeat.net... :)
Jeff
Not that anyone will read down this far, but just FYI: Yahoo! and brethen are listed in their directory under "Computers > Internet > WWW > Web Portals."
;)
Broyd
P.S. Last post?
Why, why are you breaking my heart? If you could spend just a couple pennies a day you could own that album from our Lycos-cdnow store in no time. Its worth it, really. Its just a little money. Please be nice to me. I love you.
If you really want to get that mp3 just click here.
Reminds of me the 'Mom' corporation in last week's Futurama.
Does anyone really expect corporate self-interest to ever be nothing but the epitome of profiteering?
Two points:
1st - hash tables. It doesn't take them any longer to look for a hundred words than it would to look for just one.
2nd - advertising. They have to check what you're searching for anyway, so they can put up an appropriate banner ad.
Therefore - they aren't really wasting any time with their little joke, because they had to do the work anyway.
Shaun
I just tried searching for Lycos on both Infoseek and Yahoo and guess what I got? I got a page of results with the first link being www.lycos.com
;)
Message to Infoseek and Yahoo responsibles: Please fix that. I do not want to go to Lycos so put a page there whining about why you're the best and try to convince me to stay!
Just my 2.- LUF
Beer recipe: free! #Source
Cold pints: $2 #Product
Technocrat seems to me like a bad site for
an intelligent discussion, since the
maintainer has the right to censor or edit
your postings. Their copyright policy is also
highly questionable.
Technocrat.net is stuff that matters to
FS/OSS nerds. It has little news in it.
Any other suggestions for a good Usenet search engine?
My current choice is Deja, though I hate what's happened to the site as it's been portalized. I use an alternate page. Actually, I've created my own simplified, localhost search pages for the major search engines I frequent -- I don't actually hit the sites until I get results.
There are also tools like dejasearch which provide a command-line interface to search engines, and compile results to a single, local, file for later browsing.
That said, what alternative Usenet archives are there? I've used Remarq on the odd occasion, though it strikes me as too busy and unfriendly as well. Pity.
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
It seems Lycos is filtering stuff out... for example, if you look at Lycos Home > Reference > Education > Directories-n-Resources > Search Engines Altavista, Deja, Excite, Yahoo! are not there... ok, maybe the "education" thigie has something to do with it... but Compu ters > Internet > WWW > Searching the Web > Search Engines doesn't list them either... they are stuffed in Lycos Home > Computers > Internet > WWW > Searching the Web > Search Engines > General.
This is sad, as I remember the first lycos versions, for which source code was available...
Brings me such delightful links as "START HERE: Barely Legal Teens".
After reloading several times my favourite was: "START HERE: for the best free ass pics".
I hope there aren't any kiddies with fragile little minds using Lycos to find pictures of our four legged friends!
Searching for "pussy cat" brings me a picture of "Spice Girls Kneeling in front of Planet Hollywood" (ahem). I'm not entirely sure the people at Lycos are entirely qualified to be performing word association for the world at large.
It is good for a laugh though!
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
This is not the only exasperating thing with Lycos. Another one is that if you try to access www.lycos.com from a computer with domain name ending in .fr they redirect you to www.fr.lycos.de (which means you get a page in French; it also means all the links on this /. discussion are broken for me). This is irritating at best. If I wanted a page in French I would put ``fr'' before ``en'' in my Accept-Language header, damn it! At least, Accept-Language is something I can change; not so with my domain name.
If he's fucking you in the ass, then technically, he's still filling your cavity.
What a disappointment Lycos has become. I remember when it was a project of the CS department at Carnegie-Mellon, when it was without competition as the best place to find information on the Internet. Since they went commercial, they've gone down the tubes. (I don't believe that has to happen when you've gone commercial, but it sure did happen to Lycos.)
Those of you who are saying that you understand what Lycos is doing don't convince me. Lycos asserts on its "don't go to Infoseek" page that it's the best search engine around. Why don't they just cut the crap and prove it with quality? To me, that means giving the user what he or she asked for.
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
...that lists geocities sites before others. Because they have more merit? Not exactly... Because they have some affiliation? Mmnhmn.
Same for me to the French language Lycos site.
First of all, it's odd for me, a native English speaker who happens to be living in France, to be automatically redirected to a French language page. But it starts getting to be annoying when I start out on the English page, search for Excite and end up on their Excite redirection page, which is back in the Lycos.com domain, do a search with the link on that page, and end up on the French language home page anyway!
Granted, it's hard for an English speaker to complain about the language content of the web (which must still be 90% English), but sheesh! If I start out specifying the language, shouldn't I at least stay in that language? Especially if it happens to be the original language of the site.
"I believe that the cult of the particular brings only death - for it bases order on likeness." St.-Exupery
It's a shame that they've chosen to do this. There are other meanings of the words "yahoo" and "excite" that one might legitimately search for. Gulliver met the yahoos on his Travels, and excite is one thing that nerve fibers do. Reduces Lycos' utility as a research tool. Oh, well, I tend to use Metacrawler and Google, anyway. But it's embarrassing that someone would pull a stunt like this.
...and it took me right to their front page. Are Lycos and HotBot in a partnership of some kind? I thought this was strange.
----------------
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." - Albert Einstein
Co-founder and designer at Music Nearby: http://musicnearby.com
Lycos should put an informative message explaining this, instead of lenghty propaganda text.
All the sites mentioned in your story return regular search results on the .co.uk site, which may or may not have a degree of independence from the .com site.
.com site without getting redirected to the .co.uk one, and I can't be bothered to fiddle about to get this to work. The link in the story worked, though.
I can't get to the
Lycos has a problem if it doesn't reverse this decision, for all the reasons stated so lucidly above.
Peter.
--
Peter
Another interesting possibility is a Federal law violation for anticompetitive behavior. As an example, a telephone company that excludes a competing company from its yellow pages or otherwise discriminates against it solely because the other company is a competitor violates this law.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. Perhaps somebody who is could reply and confirm/deny this, with some links to the relevant sections of USC.
How about the Rold Gold pretzels I got on my flight last week, that had the "guaranteed freshest taste"?
.5 ounce package and get a new one?(which would still taste the same) Do I get a refund on the flight?
1) How can you possibly guarantee that? Taste is totally subjective.
2) What if it doesn't? Do I send in the
Just goes to show you how the word "guarantee" is totally meaningless.
And to add insult to injury, this yahoo page has an awful design. It has images on white background, but dumb lycosers (Modified: $ 1999-04-22 11:23:04 by Johnny Girl) forgot to put BODY tag with background (or any BODY at all) in the HTML. With such an amateurish approach to site design, how good can they be anyway?
Not that I was going to use Lycos at the first place - but now I see why I'm smart not to use it.
-- Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
After having read the article, I just tried what
would happen if I asked lycos for yahoo.
When reading the answers, I actually got a link to
yahoo which worked perfectly for me.
(If you wanna know: I've been using the german
lycos page and it linked me to yahoo.de. I have
not checked their other services for this.)
Someone might also want to inform our good
friends over at Google about this.
It is hard to justify "worst operating system"
coming up with www.microsoft.com. Especially
when I think only the word operating is on the
page.
The same is also with "best operating system"
coming up with linux.com
Also "more evil than satan" also takes you through
to microsoft.com.
Sure this is funny and all but why is this any
different to the Lycos case.
Benno
BTW google is my favourite search engine,
and I prefer linux to windows (mostly) but lets
not be too hypocritical here.
This is yet another for of censorship on the internet: One company trying to 'bock out' people from seeing a competitor. This is very bad: If every comany did this, the web would definately be much harder to navigate. BTW, I tried searching for Lycos on Excite, and they are much nicer: not only to they have the normal search results, but they also have a small link to Lycos Inc. at the top of the page.
"But really, I think life is just a game of Mao Nomic." -Purplebob
What's so bad about this? We put anti-windows messages on our pages. We link to linux sites and say over and over how bad their product is and how good ours is. What's wrong with another company doing that? And all you need to do is click on their link after reading their pitch, and they'll take you directly to Yahoo. (Not the search for Yahoo, but the take me directly to their site link). I don't get how selling your product over a competitor's is bad. We do it all the time. Are we being hypocritical?
Google doesn't seed their results. This has been explained here many many times before. They are not doing the same thing. It's simply a weird emergent behaviour of their search algorithms.
----
Morning gray ignites a twisted mass of colors shapes and sounds
There is no K5 cabal.
I am not the real rusty.
Someone might also want to inform our good
friends over at Google about this.
It is hard to justify "worst operating system"
coming up with www.microsoft.com. Especially
when I think only the word operating is on the
page.
The same is also with "best operating system"
coming up with linux.com
Also "more evil than satan" also takes you through
to microsoft.com.
Sure this is funny and all but why is this any
different to the Lycos case.
Your post is more unintentionally relevant than you might think.
According to Google's scans, Microsoft is more closely associated with people writing on their web pages "worst operating system" than anyone else. Similarly, Linux gets the best operating system treatment.
Google is not a dumb engine--instead of merely rating by what's on the page, it rates by how people refer to the contents *of* the page. This is an incredibly cheap way to "borrow" intelligence from systems that can process complex information neurologically(human brains) and insert it into systems that can only marginally approximate that kind of intelligence.
Google executes its intelligence gathering in a Content Neutral manner, thus insulating it from any libel/slander that might result from returning certain values. Because Google didn't rig the system to have it return Microsoft as More Evil Than Satan, it's not their fault that that was the top hit.
If, however, Google removed that response, they'd be responsible for removing every response that could possibly be interpreted as slanderous. Note, this isn't the same as changing the algorithm to be more accurate--this is programming a specific "don't return this".
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
---
not plane, nor bird, nor even frog...
If you ask Google "What the best operating system in the world?", and all of a sudden the link order changes:
- Welcome to Microsoft's Homepage
- The Linux Home Page
- The FreeBSD Project
When you ask Google "What the best search engine in the world?", it replies:Google's team may have been being just a bit silly, but OTOH, they can't make a handler for every possible approach to the questions they want to answer differently.
Looking for sense in search engine data and results is like making a psychoanalysis of an IRC bot.
--
E2 IN2 IE?
Searching for Hotbot takes you right to their homepage.
Searching for Altavista brings up listings.
So, not all search engines are taken off.
let me guess your one of those morons from segfault
The angle of the Dangle is equaly proportional to the heat of the beat. ---Beavis
hmm.. how else would you want to find a page that you only know the name of?
Blindly typing www..com ? We all know that does not always work..
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
reminds me a bit of wordperfect (forgot version, but probably several)
when you had it search for a synonym for wordprocessor, it returned WordPerfect
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
http://www.aj.com uses it's own engine and posts the query to all the other usual search facilities as well for a comprehensive search.
But why mess about, Google is 'da bizzness'
I wonder who the targetted audience is for building this kind of response into their system - I mean, if you already know that you're looking for InfoSeek, and you know the least bit about the internet, you would look where? www.infoseek.com, exactly.
So which clueless portal user are they aiming at?
Or am I missing something?
Hurricane Application Group, Dept of Meteorology Control, Ministry of Proactive Defense
When you ask Google "What the best search engine in the world?", it replies:
Hmmm.. I'll bet that after the next scan, Google comes up first on that list. I'll just say that I've seen a lot of links that look like:
Google! - The best search engine in the world!
---
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
But then, according to SearchTerms.com, Yahoo is the fourth most searched-for term.
There must be a lot of idiots out there... probably AOL users trying to figure out how to "get to" the internet... sheesh.
Try it out ;)
Lycos must be in some way related to hotbot.
- Rei
By preventing searches for site competitors from bringing up standard spider results, Lycos is accepting the role of gatekeeper, verifying that users aren't going to be led anywhere they shouldn't be led.
That's not what Lycos is doing at all. They are doing the same thing they do with any query, using the information at their disposal to come up with what they think the best solution to the user's query will be.
In the specified case, Lycos has more context than it normally does, and so it knows that the query specifies a search engine, thus it can provide what it believes to be reasonable answers to the query.
Lycos is not deciding that given target X, the user should NOT go there. It is deciding that given target X, the best place to go would be lycos (but it doesn't keep you from going to infoseek yourself, and even provides a link).
To take a quote from your post, they merely work with whatever the customer provides. Lycos takes the query (provided by the customer) and matches it to webpages based on the content of those webpages. I admit that the matching in this case is inconsistent, because it bases its decision on "known content" instead of "content from the webpage context", but it still starts from the user's request for said content.
Using your definition, there is no way for any search engine to be content neutral, because every result they provide is based on the examined content of the page.
Dave.
Interestingly enough, though, there are some search engines that do not exhibit this kind of behavior. For instance, searching for the term "yahoo" in google gives www.yahoo.com as the top result.
Of course, google also gives the user click through access to AltaVista, Excite, HotBot, Infoseek, Lycos, Deja, Yahoo!, Amazon, Open Directory, and eGroups
If IE ever reaches "critical mass", you'll see Microsoft removing the "use current page as start page".
;)
Then msn.com will be integrated with the OS. They're inseperable.
It gets worse. Wait till the URL input disappears. You'll only be able to go to URL's using some sort of integrated "meta-URL" junk through a web form.
And to be fair, I worry about Netscape doing the same thing.
I'm SO glad Netscape released the Mozilla source when they did. I seriously doubt an inhuman corporation like AOL would ever have done that...
Then, what exactly is this link for?
Lycos seems to say, "We know about everything, we just won't tell you!"
-AP
Content Neutrality is a myth. This morning on the drive in to work I listened to an advertisement pretending to be a talkback radio segment, in which a couple of redneck types talked up the Isuzu SUV while referring to a Nissan as an "extraterrestrial".
(For the record - you wouldn't get me in either. Huge SUVs are for people with confidence problems. So sorry if anyone feels insulted by that statement.)
Lycos are in business. Everything you see on their site is an opportunity for self-promotion. What is this strategy but another attempt at advertisement? Lycos have been more than fair in including the link to the main page of the sites in question. Would it have been better if they had impartially listed every known Yahoo page, and relied on the user navigating to Yahoo home from there?
It reminds me of one of the rules in Dale Carnegie's book "How to Win Friends and Influence People" - never bad mouth a competitor. Instead explain why you're better. For a life insurance salesman he had a lot to teach...
The fact that this is news to Slashdot readers shows that if you know that a Yahoo exists, you're probably not going to search for it on lycos anyway!
if on the otherhand you search for lycos on excite's webpage you get stock quotes and all kinds of links for lycos...
--
PanDuh
Also, someone here mentioned before that the word "yahoo" and "excite" have alternate meanings, such as the yahoos of Gullivers Travels, and the "excite" states of nerve-endings and electrons!
--
PanDuh!
Here are some search results for "Lycos" on other search engines:
Yahoo! of course has a link to their search engine web directory on the bottom of every search page.
Infoseek returns the official Lycos web page as the first hit, but rates it as only 83% relevant.
On AltaVista, the Lycos main page comes in 3rd with the U.K. Lycos and their pagebuilder beating out index.
On MSN, the main Lycos page comes in 1st. Be afraid.
Google: also 1st place.
Excite reports not only the Lycos site, but their address, and current stock quotes.
I guess the results show that only Lycos seems to be doing this, but I'll bet more search engines will follow suit and ignore the others as time passes.
I often use both altavista and google. altavista is better 'precise' tool (it find everything, and I can precisely specify what&how) while google seem to have better heuristics in finding relevant web pages, so if altavista returns lots of URLs and most seem irrelevant (and I can't think of better search expression) I use google and it often returns more relevant results. I think there is place for both approaches (deterministic and heuristic).
there is no place for lycos approach in search engines. if they want to give customers edited content, do that using portal, after all that's what the portals are for.
erik
...all excited, don't know why...
You have drawn analogies between Lycos and phone companies that are quite inappropriate.
Lycos will tell you up front that they are NOT simply a conduit of information. They are a content provider. They deliberate and often shape what you see when you are at their site. When you go to Lycos to search for something, they deliberately steer you on the basis of what you are looking for. The ads you see are different, the services they offer change, all because of what you are looking for.
They have a search engine that runs largely without human intervention, but that is only part of what they do. They absolutely provide content. It definitely is not neutral.
Lycos is not in the business of coughing up a few links that you might or not click on. They want you to stay, to browse, to buy. That is a far cry from providing copper, fiber, and power.
Anyway, no pointers but good luck in your search. (Just so long as you don't start going around actually coating real live girls with quick-dry cement.)
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Search engines are inherently not very intelligent. However, if a user wants to find Yahoo!, they should be able to. But, imagine that someone might have made their own website with some strange yahoo (other than the portal site) topic. I want to see if Lycos registered my site when I asked them to. Oh, sure they did, but no one can find it, because we don't issue that query...
Granted, this is highly unlikely, but it is bad design to ignore certain queries simply because of a competitor.
My $0.02.
So what's the next step? When you search for Star Office it will direct you at MS Office from microsoft? These people should get a life. At least when I search for google I get google... ;)
"Ask me that again usind different words." --Divy
If a FrameMaker document contains the word "Interleaf" (a competing product) the spell checker will suggest the replacement "FrameMaker". I guest you could justify this if you were converting a document to FrameMaker from Interleaf and the document refers to the tool used to produce the document but it is still funny. Anyone else have interesting spell checker replacements?
Now that we've set that precident... I need to get out there and brush up all the old cons and scams.
"Yes, your Honor, I would like to point out to the court that the scam I was using was obvious and only GULLIBLE people fall for it."
Judge glares at the DA Attorney. "Yes, yes... you're quite right, young man. I have NO idea why this case was even brought to me. Case dismissed!"
Well. I'm not a search engine expert. So I went to some experts to find out. In the interest of brevity, I kept it to two of the affected Lycos competitors: Yahoo and Infoseek. Hit the links and see how THEY handle Lycos.
Amazing. Its what I would expect of a search engine/ web listing/ portal: easy to follow listings pertaining to the site I was interested in. No sales pitches. No confusing links. Just the info I need.
How refreshing.
Sorry 'bout the run-on. :)
If you type Hotbot into Lycos, you go to hotbot.com!
--EC
EverCode
Did you find any good sites of turned-to-stone stuff ? You've got me interested. ;-)
p.s. I am a Dungeons and Dragons reject. Go me.
25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
Here's a little scenario:
A student is doing a project on Gulliver's travels. This student wants to find out info on the differencet cultures that Gulliver encountered. He searches for Lilliput and gets something on nanotech but eventually he finds some info. He searches for Yahoo and gets this nice happy message from Lycos. Hmm, this poor soul thinks, what the hell's going on?
Lycos should realize the different meanings word can have; not everything with the word yahoo in it is a competitor.
Ya dirty yahoos. Traser
Insanity is contagious. - Yossarian
Should I penalized for my browser crashing after hitting the submit button? And then trying to submit it again (slashdot doesn't update new articles every second- I didn't see it there, I assumed it hadn't gone through)? Sniff sniff- I'm really hurt.
Lycos's eccentric and self-destructive little action is the thin end of an unfortunate wedge: the network of corporate alliances is growing smaller and tighter, and the pressure to make portals 'sticky' (driven by competition for advertising revenues) is increasing all the time. The result is that each of these so-called 'portals' will eventually seek to lock users into a framework of information and applications that constitutes a de facto proprietary solution to the Internet - a contradiction in terms, and a recipe for extinction. Metaportals like Wonderport are the only way out of this evolutionary cul-de-sac, and will soon steal the ground from the dinosaurs...
Almost as entertaining is the third result on the Google result list for "more evil than satan":
www.disney.com