Google to Anonymize Search Data

When you search on Google, we collect information about your search, such as the query itself, IP addresses and cookie details. Previously, we kept this data for as long as it was useful. Today we're pleased to report a change in our privacy policy: Unless we're legally required to retain log data for longer, we will anonymize our server logs after a limited period of time. When we implement this policy change in the coming months, we will continue to keep server log data (so that we can improve Google's services and protect them from security and other abuses)-but will make this data much more anonymous, so that it can no longer be identified with individual users, after 18-24 months.

Just as we continuously work to improve our products, we also work toward having the best privacy practices for our users. This includes designing privacy protections into our products (like Google Talk's "off the record" feature or Google Desktop's "pause" and "lock search" controls). This also means providing clear, easy to understand privacy policies that help you make informed decisions about using our services.

After talking with leading privacy stakeholders in Europe and the U.S., we're pleased to be taking this important step toward protecting your privacy. By anonymizing our server logs after 18-24 months, we think we're striking the right balance between two goals: continuing to improve Google's services for you, while providing more transparency and certainty about our retention practices. In the future, it's possible that data retention laws will obligate us to retain logs for longer periods. Of course, you can always choose to have us retain this data for more personalized services like Search History. But that's up to you.

"Google seems to have finally realized that keeping detailed logs of users' online activities threatens their privacy. We are very glad to see Google is taking these first steps to limit their retention of data which can intimately detail users' private online activities .We hope this is only a first step and we hope they will expand this to retain this data for even less time."

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Web Surfing Highlights

Here are some Internet and web surfing news highlights from around the Web.

Search Engine Smackdown: Test your search engine knowledge

Live Search turns off link:, linkdomain: and inurl: to stop data mining efforts

Yahoo has announced the release of the Yahoo Mail API

Baidu, the most popular search engine in China, is opening a search engine for Japan.

A search engine for pizza at www.pizza.net (via WebProNews)

Where's Waldo the search engine?

Google has added a new feature called "Plus Box" that displays maps, stock quotes.

TV Guide plans to launch a video search engine.

K-Fed lures visitors to his search engine with an Olde English Font.

FBI releases Internet crime stats. Suprisingly, complaints are down from last year.

Google to alter search privacy data once search data is 18 to 24 months old.

Bloomberg is reporting that Microsoft Search will be bumping Google off Lenovo PCs.

Posted on March 30, 2007
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Google Search Tips

SmallBusinessHub has a good collection of tips to use when searching the web with Google. Some of the tips that many novices do not know are to use phrases, search within specific websites and exclude words from your search. These following tips covers this situations.

1. Explicit Phrase: Lets say you are looking for content about internet marketing. Instead of just typing internet marketing into the Google search box, you will likely be better off searching explicitly for the phrase. To do this, simply enclose the search phrase within double quotes.

Example: "internet marketing"

2. Exclude Words: Lets say you want to search for content about internet marketing, but you want to exclude any results that contain the term advertising. To do this, simply use the "-" sign in front of the word you want to exclude.

Example Search: internet marketing -advertising

3. Site Specific Search: Often, you want to search a specific website for content that matches a certain phrase. Even if the site doesn't support a built-in search feature, you can use Google to search the site for your term. Simply use the "site:somesite.com" modifier.

Example: "internet marketing" site:www.smallbusinesshub.com

Other tips on the SmallBusinessHub post including using the "OR" command, finding word defintions and using numeric ranges.

Posted on March 5, 2007
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Microsoft Acquires Medstory

The New York Times reports that Microsoft has acquired Medstory, a medical search provider. The Times says there has been increasing investment in online health properties lately.

The acquisition follows Microsoft's purchase last year of Azyxxi, a clinical health care software system that retrieves and quickly displays patient information from many sources, including scanned documents, X-rays, M.R.I. scans and ultrasound images.

The Microsoft move comes at a time of increased investment in online health ventures, rising traffic at consumer health sites on the Web and profits at the most popular sites. Last month, a venture firm headed by Stephen M. Case, the former chief executive of America Online, introduced an ambitious new consumer health site, RevolutionHealth.com.

WebMD, the leading health-related site, last week reported strong quarterly profit of $8.9 million on revenue of $80.6 million, surpassing Wall Street’s expectations. The stock price of WebMD — an Internet pioneer in health information that struggled for years — has surged in the last year.

In health-related search, Healthline Networks, a start-up in San Francisco, reports rising traffic on its Web site and a growing string of deals to provide the search engine for sites of other companies, including Merck and PacifiCare. At Google, Adam Bosworth, a vice president for engineering, is leading the effort to develop a health-information offering.

Peter Neupert, vice president for health strategy at Microsoft, told the Times that the long-term goal is to "link personal information like age, sex, drug regimens, family history and even genetic markers to search." That sounds great as long as the serious privacy issues it would raise for consumers can be put at ease.

Posted on February 27, 2007
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Editors Working on DMOZ Again

Shadow575, a volunteer editor for the DMOZ Open Directory Project, reported recently that DMOZ has opened editor access up again to the volunteer editors.

Well contrary to what was reported in numerous SEO blogs over the last few days, DMOZ returned today for editor access. There are still some bugs and apparently some scripts aren't turned on yet, as some are reporting that site suggestions and editor applications are still not working at this point. However the editors have gotten back in to assess the damage on their own, and to see what kind of work is ahead for those of us who remain dedicated to the project. I suspect there are quite a few upset bloggers (and forum posters) who have been singing the death of the directory. I had felt all along that the directory would be back and had faith in the sources that were saying things were being worked on. I just didn't think it would be today.

There may be some SEO pros that don't like the human-edited directory because it is difficult to get listed in but overall it is a great resource for web users. Hopefully, the listings will DMOZ will continue to be updated and the directory will be able to grow and expand. The open directory has over 75,000 human editors.

Posted on February 26, 2007
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25 Web 2.0 Search Engines

The Online Education Database (OEDb) has posted an interesting collection of 25 Web 2.0 search engines. The post includes good descriptions of each search engine. The collection includes Flickr search tools like Flickr Storm, Tagnautica, Tiltomo, Xcavator and Retriever. There are rich applications searches like Huckabuck, KwMap and Ujiko. Also included is Whonu, which is billed as a semantic web search engine.

Posted on February 10, 2007
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Instant Search With Windows Vista

Microsoft's Windows Vista website describes a desktop search feature called Instant Search. Instant Search looks more visually pleasing than the old Windows search. From Microsoft's description it sounds like the performance is also much improved over the Windows XP desktop search.

Windows Vista introduces Instant Search: enhanced desktop search and organization that helps you locate files and e-mail messages on your PC. If you remember anything about a file—the type of file, when it was created, or even what it contains-Windows Vista can quickly find it for you.

With Instant Search, you are never more than a few keystrokes away from whatever you're looking for. This feature, which is available almost anywhere you are in Windows Vista, enables you to search for a file name, a property, or even text contained within a file, and it returns pinpointed results. It's fast and easy. Instant Search is also contextual, optimizing its results based on your current activity-whether it's searching Control Panel applets, looking for music files in Windows Media Player, or looking over all your files and applications on the Start menu.

Windows Vista just arrived in stores today. Here are some links to resources about the new operating system:

Windows Vista Blogs

Windows Vista Launch and Links

Windows Vista Books

Wikipedia Entry

Microsoft's Vista Website

Posted on January 30, 2007
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Cranky Search Engine Aimed at Seniors

CNN reports that a new search engine located at Cranky.com is targeting the 50-plus demographic.

Eons, the media company behind Cranky.com, said that the new search engine will yield fewer search results and rank them based on their relevancy to older Web users.

Eons was started by Jeff Taylor, the founder and former chairman of online job site Monster.com, which is owned by Monster Worldwide.

Taylor said in a written statement that the company teamed up with online consumer research firm Compete to find the 5000 most popular Web sites among a group of 500,000 Web users aged 45 and older and rated each site in order to create Cranky.com.

According to the Cranky.com Web site, the top requested searches for Web users over the age of 50 last year show some similarities to the most popular searches on sites like Google and Yahoo - searches about blogs and making new friends were among the top ten searches on Cranky.com-rated sites, for example.

But there were also several key differences between what's interesting to younger Web users and the older ones that Cranky.com is targeting. While Paris Hilton and Britney Spears were top celebrity searches on Yahoo and Google, author Stephen King was the most searched celebrity according to Cranky.com. Other popular searches on Cranky.com were for information about brain builder mental exercises and jobs after retirement.

You can see some of the most popular search terms used on the website here. Cranky is made by the same company that started the Eons social network for the 50+ crowd.

Posted on January 17, 2007
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Yahoo Local Gets Social

Search Engine Watch reports that Yahoo is adding user generated content (UCG) to its local search tools. The feature is called Consumer Submit and it allows consumer to add notes to business listings on Yahoo Local.

Last month, Yahoo added another user-generated content feature to Local, Consumer Submit. That feature allows users to add or edit a business listing, updating contact information, store hours, or identifying businesses that are no longer open. The modifications do not change the listing permanently, but appear as notes that can be reviewed by others, who can agree or disagree and build a consensus on the accuracy of the information.

User-generated content has always been at the core of some other local search products, as well as social networking/directory hybrids such as InsiderPages, Judysbook and Yelp. IAC's Citysearch has long featured ratings and reviews, and added more social search features last year. That content is now featured more prominently in Ask.com's search results and in its new AskCity local search product.

Yahoo views these features as "social utilities" that harness the always-present offline word-of-mouth that friends and neighbors use to find a contractor, pick a restaurant, or choose a mechanic, Miller said.

LocalMN Blog provides another explanation of Consumer Submit including a graphic showing how it works. It should help make listing on Yahoo Local more useful. Yahoo's Local blog has more information about the new feature. You can also find more blog posts about the new feature here, here, here and here.

Posted on January 11, 2007
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Very Unsimilar Search Results for Google, Yahoo and AOL

Rough Type looks at the top search results for 2006 from Google, Yahoo and AOL and finds there is no similarity. Only the term "American Idol" made it on multiple top search lists.

There's only a single overlap: "American Idol" appears on both Yahoo and AOL. That's it. I would have thought that, given the sheer number of searches done through each engine, there'd be a lot more similarity in the results. I guess it means that very different types of people use each of the three engines.

Looking back over the results, I think I can suggest the following market segmentation: Google users are dweebs. Yahoo users are horndogs. And AOL users are geezers.

The search engines either each have completely different users or there is something fishy going on. Yahoo's top search for 2006 seems the most likely given our culture's obsession with celebrities.

Posted on December 19, 2006
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Visual Web Search With Pagebull

Pagebull is a visual search engine that gives you an idea of what pages look like before you visit them. For example, if you search Pagebull for recipes you will see pictures of pages from AllRecipes, the Food Network, Epicurous, Better Homes and Gardens and Meals.com in the search results. Panda Search Engine News explains how Pagebull has abandoned text search results completely by using linked pictures of pages instead of words and hyperlinks.

What makes Pagebull stand apart, though, is that all results are presented as pictures of the search result pages. Yes, that's right, this is not a question of adding small thumbnails to regular search results (that has been done before). Pagebull abandons text alltogether.

Pagebull shows the search results in a 3 by 4, 2 by 6 or 4 by 3 image grid, depending on your Internet browser window size. You can use a drop down menu to customize the image grid, if needed.

It is amazing to see how much information is contained in pictures like this. Although it may be hard to read the text present in the images, the lay out, the picture selected and the main headlines immediately give you an impression of what the page is about.

It is a good thing the text on the pages is not very readable -- otherwise the websites being listed might object to their content being framed by Pagebull. As is stands most web publishers will probably not object to what Pagebull is doing. Pagebull does provide information for webmasters who do not want their site in Pagebull. Pagebull is an interesting search tool that provides a completely new way to search the web.

Posted on December 11, 2006
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Yahoo's Top Searches of 2006

Yahoo has released its list of the top searches for 2006. Here are the lists for the top overall searches and for the top news searches.

Top Overall Searches

1. Britney Spears
2. WWE
3. Shakira
4. Jessica Simpson
5. Paris Hilton
6. American Idol
7. Beyonce Knowles
8. Chris Brown
9. Pamela Anderson
10. Lindsay Lohan

Top News Searches

1. Steve Irwin death
2. Anna Nicole's son dies
3. Iraq
4. Israel and Lebanon
5. U.S. elections
6. Fidel Castro stroke
7. North Korea nuke
8. JonBenet confession
9. Saddam Hussein trial
10. Danish cartoon

You can see a video from Yahoo here about the top searches. The lists of top search in multiple categories can be found here. (via Yahoo Searchblog)

Posted on December 8, 2006
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Ask.com Goes Local With AskCity

Ask.com has rolled out Ask City, a new local search service. The New York Times reports that early reviews of the service are positive.

On Monday, Ask.com is introducing AskCity, a service that integrates maps with information about local businesses, restaurants, concert and movie listings and reviews.

These so-called local searches already account for 10 percent of all Internet queries and are expected to grow faster than other searches. They are also seen as a way to tap into tens of billions in spending by small businesses, which have yet to switch much of their advertising dollars to the Internet.

Early reviews of the service by analysts are positive, and Mr. Lanzone said AskCity, which makes use of data from other IAC businesses like Citysearch and Ticketmaster, was just the kind of service that was slowly helping Ask build a top-quality search engine.

"Right now, the focus is almost entirely on improving the user experience," Mr. Lanzone said. "This is the product that, to date, we are the most proud of. It is going to have a huge impact for people who use Ask."

Search Engine Land and News.com report that AskCity includes information about businesses, movies, events and directions using data from InterActiveCorp (IAC) properties including Citysearch, Ticketmaster, Evite, Trip Advisor, ReserveAmerica, OpenTable, Yelp, Fandango, InsiderPages and Judysbook. A more detailed review can be found here on Screenwerk.

Posted on December 4, 2006
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Google's Custom Search Tool

Google launched a custom search engine tool a few weeks ago that will compete will custom search providers like Rollyo and Swicki. With Google Custom Search you can create your own search engine that searches only the websites you want it to search. You can see an examples of custom search engines at Tech Terms Search, which is a search engine that searches online technical dictionaries; Greeting Cards Search, a search engine that searches for online greeting cards; Petosphere, a pets information search engine; and Gadget Search, a search engine that searches gadget websites. This post on BloggersBlog.com lists more custom search engines people have created. There is also a website that has started a directory of some of the custom search engines. (via Stephen's Lighthouse)

Posted on November 24, 2006
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InfoSpace Offers Kid Search at Zoo.com

InfoSpace has launched a new kid-focused search engine called Zoo. The site filters content from Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia and major news hubs like ABC News and Yahoo News. Zoo's site explains they are not a perfect filter.

Here at Zoo, we do our best to filter out sexually explicit web search results. We do not comprehensively filter any other content. Since all filters are not perfect, we ask for your help in telling us if you find any sexually explicit or mature material while searching at Zoo. Our goal is to continually improve the site, so we encourage your feedback— this is your site.

Without limiting a kid search engine to only kid-friendly websites it is going to be difficult to filter everything that is inappropriate. Filtering ads isn't the only problem kid search sites face -- ResearchBuzz is also concerned about the way the advertisements are displayed on the search engine.

Posted on November 22, 2006
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Riya Search Tool Offers Image Queries

Like is a new search tool from Riya Inc. that allows people to query via text and images. TechCrunch calls it the first visual search engine and explains how Riya can be used to find products. One use of Like is to shop for items that are similar to what a celebrity is wearing such as Miriah Carey's boots or Paris Hilton's ring.

The Like.com engine takes both text and images as queries, something no one else does. To return results based on an image query, Like.com compares a "visual signature" for the query image to possible results. The visual signature is simply a mathematical representatioin of the image using 10,000 variables. If enough variables are identical, Like.com decides the images are similar.

What this means - If you see an image on the web, like a watch that Paris Hilton is wearing in the picture to the left, and use it as an image query, Like.com will return results showing watches that look very similar.

If you enter a text query, like "brown boots pointed toe," Like.com will convert that query into variables in the visual signature and look for related image results. See screen shot below for the results from this query.

You can see an example here that lets you search for products that are similar to what Paris is seen wearing in several photos. The results are products that resemble what Paris is wearing. You can then adjust the results by shape, color and pattern.

Posted on November 20, 2006
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New People Search Called Spock in Development

News.com reports that a new people search tool called Spock is in the work that will be able to provide a photograph and information about people. The site will launch with 100 million profiles.

Spock, a start-up that wants to make it easier to find personal information about people on the web, has launched its private beta.

Type in a name, and Spock says it can serve up a picture, address, occupation, interests and other information. Conversely, you can type in an occupation and location ("Rodeo Clown, Lubbock") and it will spit up people that fit that category.

VentureBeat explains how Spock could help you find relevant informatoin about a celebrity.

Here’s an example of how it works: If you type in "actress," Spock returns results like Google — with listings down a page. In this case, the first entry is Felicity Huffman, who Spock’s engine finds as the most relevant for "actress." (Now, if you type in “actress” into Google, you'll see why Spock has a chance; there are few actresses in the results, except for the annoying site ActressArchives at the top). Moreover, as both Spock and LinkedIn make their profiles more popular, these will rank higher in Google’s results anyway.

Continuing with our "actress" example, you first get a photo of Huffman, but you also get a bunch of tags underneath telling you how she is relevant. For example, there's tag for "Oscar nominee for best actress," and "Desperate Housewives," for which she is well known. There's a "Wikipedia" tag. If you click on these tags, Spock will take you its relevant results for that tag. This gives users a way of searching for information related to the Huffman.

The tag font size gets smaller if Spock's engine detects the tag isn't relevant for the person. So if users create a "sexy" tag for Huffman, the tag may get larger or smaller, depending on how many people agree. Spock gives users an option of clicking on the tag and selecting "yes" or "no." If they select no, Spock factors this into its database. Then, if you type in "sexy actress," Huffman will have fallen slightly in the ranking. Spock has built ways to keep people from gaming the system. If you want to add tags, for example, you have register - one way for Spock to monitor usage.

We won't know how accurate Spock is until it launches but it does sound like a significant competitor for people finding sites like Zoominfo.

Posted on November 16, 2006
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Ask.com to Power Lycos

Ask.com will provide Web search, image search, and zoom search for the Lycos Network in a new deal between the two companies. Search Engine Watch has the press release which lists what Ask.com is providing for Lycos.

Web Search: Delivers highly relevant search results through its ExpertRank proprietary algorithmic search technology, which ranks results based on popularity within topic communities on the Web, rather than mere link popularity.

Image Search: Combines Ask.com's proprietary index of pictures with ExpertRank and patent-pending image search technologies to deliver dramatically improved relevance and quality of search results. Ask.com Image Search has been touted by some as best of class for searching the Image Web.

Zoom Related Search: Offers conceptually-related suggestions to narrow or expand a search query. Zoom related search is placed on the right side of the search results page where most search engines place advertisements. No other search engine has the ability to offer conceptually-related suggestions.

Ask Sponsored Listings (ASL) Search Advertising: Provides highly relevant keyword-targeted, pay-per-click advertising. Advertisers bid for placement through Ask.com’s automated open-auction system that also allows marketers to manage and optimize campaigns on Ask.com and its publisher network. ASL sources more than 5 billion queries each month, and supports over 10,000 advertisers bidding on more than 10 million keywords. About Ask.com

Ask.com will power Lycos.com's web and image search technology and provide some pay-per-click advertising. Ask.com is a great search engine and one of the most underrated.

Posted on November 15, 2006
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President Bush Uses "The Google"

President Bush said he uses "the Google" in a recent interview on CNBC. Think Progress has a video and a transcript of the President's exact words.

HOST: I'm curious, have you ever googled anybody? Do you use Google?

BUSH: Occasionally. One of the things I've used on the Google is to pull up maps. It's very interesting to see - I've forgot the name of the program - but you get the satellite, and you can - like, I kinda like to look at the ranch. It remind me of where I wanna be sometimes.

This Bushism is going to be as popular as his comment during the 2004 debates about "The Internets."

Posted on October 27, 2006
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Searchbots Return

Searchbots has returned after a three year absence. When the site was active 30,000 search bots were created.

Searchbots was originally launched in 1999 by Morse Media as a way of showcasing Macromedia's Flash Generator and over 30,000 personalised Searchbots were built. The project proved to be unsustainable and has been under redevelopment for the last three years as a research project.

The website says that in May that the "new Searchbots prototype was launched today at the Webstock Conference in Wellington, New Zealand. The website is still under development but you can build your own Searchbot and do a colour or tag search." It is cool that the personal searchbots have returned.

Posted on October 13, 2006
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Secretive Search Engine to Take on Google

VentureBeat has a article about Powerset, a search company currently operating in stealth mode. Powerset is working on what it calls "natural language" search.

Powerset is trying to solve the natural language problem, by making its core engine understand concepts of time, place, sentiment and other intent. But Pell and Newcomb stop short of going into the details of their computational linguistics approach, saying it is sensitive. They are also giving no dates about when it will be released.

They insist, however, that it is a radical improvement. So when Craig Silverstein, first employee of Google said it will take many years to get a computer to a point to understand exactly what people are searching for, Powerset thinks differently: "It is not a long way away," says Pell. "This is not a change of some technology out on the periphery," adds Newcomb, "we're changing the core of the engine."

He says such a transformation hasn't happened in eight years, since Google invented "page rank," a concept that ranks a page higher in relevance depending on how many people are linking to it. So while Google has bought companies like Applied Semantics to help find "themes" on web pages, Newcomb shakes his head, and says Powerset wants to do much more. "We're switching the core out," he says, adding that when you do that, you’re also going to fundamentally change the image, video, blog and all other searches that Google is doing. Google may be caught in an "innovators dilemma," co-founder Steve Newcomb says, because it can't turn on dime.

Cofounder Barney Pell has a logn post about Powerset and natural language search. He says 5 to 10 years from now we will look back and say, "remember when we used to search using keywords?"

Posted on October 5, 2006
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Amazon Drop Features From A9.com

The Associated Press reports that Amazon has dropped features from A9.com including its street-level yellow pages feature.

Amazon.com Inc.'s A9 search engine has dropped some of its most widely touted features, including the ability to remember everything a user has ever searched for and a service that showed detailed, street-level images of major cities.

The Internet retailer removed the functions, along with several others, late Friday. Amazon.com spokesman Drew Herdener said the company is "shifting its priorities to areas where it can provide the greatest benefit for customers."

A9 had put considerable effort into taking detailed, street-level photos of 20 U.S. cities, which people could use to map directions and find businesses. Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. also have invested heavily in such photographic search technologies.

Amazon.com has switched the main provider of its A9.com search results from Google to Microsoft's Live.com search engine. Amazon is also using IceRocket.com for blog search as well as other third party searches like Flickr and Wikipedia.

Posted on October 3, 2006
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Google Has the Most Dead Pages

Google is the leader is dead and old pages according to a study cited by Google Operating System.

Ziv Bar-Yossef, from Google, wrote a paper about sampling random pages from a search engine's index using queries. He explains some of the technical details in this video, including the utility of sampling random pages: comparing search engines, estimating the amount of spam, of fresh results etc.

He applied the results from his paper and compared Google, Yahoo and MSN Search. Here are three charts that show a comparison of the index size, how many dead pages are in each search engine and how fresh the results are. The charts are only an estimation, and they have a bias of around 10%. As you can see, Google doesn't do very well.

Ziv Bar-Yossef found that about 2% of Google's pages were dead pages compared to less than 1% for MSN and Yahoo. Sometimes dead pages can contain useful information -- such as the cached pages of a site that has been removed -- so it isn't always a bad thing to store dead pages. (via Search Engine Watch)

Posted on September 25, 2006
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Ask.com Rolls Out Emoticon Search

Ask.com blogs that they will now return an explanation for emotion searches like :) and :D. They will also help readers searching for LOL and ROFL.

For a long time people have wanted the ability to search for terms and phrases on the web using non-letter (A-Z) characters. Put another way, searching using non-alphanumeric characters.

Well the time has come here at Ask.com and we've started to roll-out some what we hope are useful and practical examples.

We now offer a growing list of emoticons (aka smileys) that can be found by simply typing the smiley into the search box. Look for the definition in a Smart Answer box at the top of web results page.

Here are some examples. (Note: We hope our readers already know the meanings of these examples).

:)

:-/

:D

BRB

LOL

ROTFL

Posted on September 5, 2006
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Ixquick Promises to Delete User IP Addresses

Most people are familiar with the recent AOL Data scandal (see also here and here). The release of all this data, some of which was personally identifiable customer data, has concerned web users. The Ixquick metasearch engine was quick to jump with a solution. They have promised to delete unique IP addresses and user-IDs.

As digital technology increasingly pervades our world, more and more personal details are being stored electronically, many of them by search engines. While you are searching the internet, these engines register the time of your searches, the terms you used, the sites you visited and your IP address. In many cases this IP address makes it possible to trace the computer, and in turn the household, that carried out the search.

These personal details are often retained for long periods by search engines and are of interest to commercial parties, governments and even criminals. "Many search engines openly use this data for commercial purposes. It seems only to be a question of time before the data gets misused," alleges Van Eesteren. "Therefore we have decided to permanently delete all personal search records. If the data is not stored, users privacy can't be breached".

Ixquick's Meta Search feature enables the user to simultaneously search 11 of the best search engines. However, Ixquick does not share the user's personal data with these individual search engines in any circumstances. In addition, as of this week, Ixquick will delete the users' IP addresses and 'unique user IDs' from its own 'Log Files'.

"Therefore, any user can use Ixquick.com to search in a combination of the best search engines secure in the knowledge that they can enjoy complete protection of their privacy," continues Mr. van Eesteren.

More search engines should follow Ixquick's lead and quit storing IP addresses.

Posted on August 31, 2006
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Yahoo Integrates Flickr Photos With Yahoo Search

Yahoo bought Flickr last year (see here). Now they have integrated the popular photo sharing website with Yahoo Search results.

Now you can find this experience through Yahoo! Search. Try searching for funny photos and you'll find hilarious and wacky Flickr photos of animals, kids, and signs. Searching for things that people think are funny is a good example of a query where combining what the community knows (and tags) with what algorithms can compute can lead to better search results.

Yahoo lists a few suggestions to try: Funny Photos, Interesting Photos and Nature Photography. Any search with photos or photography after it will work like Frog Photos and Celebrity Photos.

Posted on August 24, 2006
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Yahoo Search Builder

Yahoo has launched Yahoo Search Builder, which allows people to build customizable search engines for a specific website or a specific subject. The search builder should be a popular tool for webmasters. Here are some of the features available.

Instantly add web search and site search to your site.

Customize the look and feel of search to match your site.

Customize the search engine algorithm to focus on your site's topic.

Engage your users with Most Popular searches, tailored to your audience.

The Yahoo Search Blog has a post about the new Yahoo Search Builder. The post includes a link to this deep sea diving search engine that one website has already built.

Posted on August 9, 2006
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Google Debuts Government Search

Google has launched a special U.S. Government Search Site. The site allows web surfers to search only within government websites. For example if you type in health, it quickly returns government health resources like Healthfinder, National Institutes of Health and the United States Department of Health and Human Services. The website also includes local DC weather and news headlines from the White House and government news sources. The website can be personalized to change the news sources. A login is required to make changes. A faq provides more information about how to use the search. Via LibrarianInBlack.

Posted on July 6, 2006
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Study Finds MSN Most Relevant Search Engine

A new search study from Intralink has found that MSN Search has the most relative search results. Intralink also believes MSN will gain the most in the second quarter of 2006.

n terms of relevance MSN came out on top for the second quarter in a row. Google however performed much better this quarter due to the huge increase in the number of search terms analyzed and less emphasis on major metropolitan area business searches.

The study also found that the majority of web sites are not properly constructed to allow search engines to find them and relate content to searches. This is allowing smaller directory sites to exploit the gaps with advertising related pages and very little real content.

Intralink's research team evaluated more than 25,000 pages and performed over 4000 searches. You can see the Search Engine Relevancy Report here. An executive summary of the report is located here.

Posted on July 5, 2006
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Jux2 Adds MSN Search Results

Jux2 is a meta-search engine that allows users to compare search results from three major search engines: Google, MSN Search and Yahoo. Jux2 has added several new search enhancements since being acquired earlier this year by Douglas Baker. Baker says the primary object of Jux2 is to "allow searchers to compare results from the leading search engines, which saves time and ensures that the user is receiving the most relevant search results."

Here is a list of the recent Jux2 enhancements:

MSN results have been added to provide a wider breadth of results

Toolbar options that will work with both Firefox and Internet Explorer

Desktop access using the Jux2 Widget for Yahoo Widget Engine (Mac or PC) or Jack of all Widgets for Apple's Dashboard.

Posted on June 16, 2006
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AOL to Offer New Search Tools

GameDaily reports that AOL is going to be adding new search features.

Time Warner's AOL unit is focused on further boosting its competitiveness with new services and doesn't fear being hurt by traditional media firms entering the online advertising sector, the online giant's head told investors Wednesday.

AOL chairman and CEO Jonathan Miller predicted a bright future for his firm, thanks to "rapidly rising" online video consumption patterns and technologies the firm will continue to add.

AOL will launch "a new search experience this summer," Miller said in a webcast session at the Goldman Sachs Internet Conference in Las Vegas, hinting that a "primary video search technology" could help AOL draw users away from other leading search portals, such as Google and Yahoo! Inc.

AOL could use a boost. It has been falling farther behind Google in the search department over the past few years. Currently, MSN is third behind Yahoo and Google. In the most recent study MSN dropped farther behind Google in search marketshare.

Posted on May 30, 2006
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Google is the Search King

Google is still the search king according to new data from HitWise. In article citing HitWise's statistics, IT Wire reports that Google has 47.4% of the search market. However, they trail their competitors in services like web-based mail, online news and digital mapping.

According to the newly released Hitwise figures, Google has 47.4% share of the search market, which is pushing toward double the combined shares of Yahoo (16%) and Microsoft's MSN (11.5%). However, based on the same set of figures, outside of the search space Google does not seem to have gained much traction at all. Yahoo Mail rules the roost with 42.4%, followed by Microsoft's Hotmail with 22.9%. By comparison, Google's Gmail does not rate, with just 2.54%

Google also does not do well in online news or finance areas, where once again Yahoo wins out easily. In finance, Google, with just 0.29% share is absolutely dwarfed by Yahoo, which has 34.9%, with Microsoft's MSN providing at least respectable competition with 13.4% share. News is more fragmented but Google once again has just 1.9% share compared to Yahoo's 6.3%.

A ComScore study also shows Google pulling away from its competitors in search.

Posted on May 25, 2006
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Yahoo Launches Livesearch on the AlltheWeb

Yahoo! has announced the launch of a new search technology called Livesearch. Livesearch is currently running on Yahoo's AlltheWeb search engine.

Today we are introducing a new search technology called Livesearch on AlltheWeb. It helps you find what you want faster, by showing search results instantaneously as you type. Livesearch also shows related queries, spelling suggestions, and enables you to use keyboard shortcuts to help you find the right query faster to get to the results that you want. As some of you might be thinking, this is an evolution of Instant Search and other search technologies we've been working on.

In addition to helping you notice an spelling errors, Livesearch also gives you a great list of relevant search terms on the left hand side that you can click on to bring up more search results. The post on Yahoo's Search Blog says AlltheWeb will be sort of a testing ground for Yahoo: "AlltheWeb is a search destination that has its roots as a showcase of new and innovative technology - for example AlltheWeb was the first site to roll out the calculator functionality within the search box. The site will remain true to its roots as we continue to introduce new technologies there in the future."

Posted on May 15, 2006
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