Popular Search Engines from the 90s, then and now
posted by sugarfish on Sep 17, 2009 - 92 comments

Google has released an experimental search tool, Google Squared, that presents search results in the form of a table. Each column represents some attribute or dimension of the things returned - for example, searching for US presidents yields a column for date of birth, and rows for Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, etc. [more inside]
posted by Zarkonnen on Jun 5, 2009 - 70 comments

To celebrate their 10th birthday Google have brought back their oldest available index dating back to 2001.
posted by HaloMan on Sep 30, 2008 - 110 comments

Google Search Engine Ranking Factors v2 "represents the collective wisdom of 37 leaders in the world of organic search engine optimization. Together, they have voted on the various factors that are estimated to comprise Google's ranking algorithm." The highest ranked factor is Keyword Use in Title Tag.
posted by Soup on Aug 18, 2008 - 56 comments

Cuil is a new search engine developed by former Google employees, and claims to index 3x more pages than Google. CNN Money story has the basics. My attempts were met with timeouts. [more inside]
posted by Ynoxas on Jul 28, 2008 - 189 comments

According to ComScore, Google takes 59.8% of search traffic in the US, leaving Yahoo, MSN and smaller players to fight for the scraps. Pretty pie-chart here. Slightly different numbers are available from Compete and Hitwise, but Google still rules the roost.
posted by SharQ on Apr 17, 2008 - 25 comments

If Google was designed for Google.
posted by armoured-ant on Oct 16, 2007 - 36 comments

DMOZ Editor(s) seeking extortion for continued inclusion is putting further smudge on the "volunteer" directory. Seems lots of folks have had their hands out over inclusion in the DMOZ, so why hasn't a business been built out of it? Is Best of the Web positioning itself as Google Bait?
posted by FlamingBore on Aug 28, 2007 - 12 comments

Google Checkout is officially unveiled today; the latest service to join the Google arsenal in their race to control the entire www. It has been suggested in the news that the Google payment service was also a big factor in the recent Yahoo and eBay partnership, since eBay's Paypal service might finally have some real competition. More info on the service here.
posted by p3t3 on Jun 29, 2006 - 32 comments

Google Images Censored in China A picture says 1000 words, and Google.cn is censoring them all. Check out the side-by-side screens of a search for "tiananmen+square" in Google.com and Google.cn images. Looks like a nice place, with little historical significance. You can try the search yourself. The text on the bottom left is the censorship disclaimer. Very different than our results. A far cry from Google's claim that they do not censor results. Nice to know that they stand up to the government here but not abroad.

A good spoof of the whole thing.
posted by FeldBum on Jan 30, 2006 - 57 comments

Google music search... It had to happen sooner or later, right? Drop in a phrase, you get artist, album, and song title matches to choose from. Choose an artist, you get a list of their albums and on the album page you get a tracklisting and links to buy the album online, as well as links to do other artist/album/song-related Google searches.
posted by sarajflemming on Dec 15, 2005 - 53 comments

Mark Cuban, who obviously just has too much time on his hands, is teaming up with Icerocket in an attempt to thwart Google for search engine dominance.
posted by Ufez Jones on Aug 3, 2004 - 22 comments

Mining the Deep Web. Google indexes 4 billion pages, but there are hundreds of billions of documents out there in the Deep Web that are effectively unreachable by search engines because they are locked in databases or are unsearchable media. It looks like Yahoo is going to start giving us a peek by providing unified access to a wide variety of sites that are ordinarily only searchable by their own custom search engines.
posted by badstone on Mar 2, 2004 - 12 comments

Adult search engine, Booble.com has received a cease and desist order from Google on the grounds of trademark infringement. Read Google's letter and Booble's response. all links are work safe.
posted by paulrockNJ on Jan 29, 2004 - 22 comments

Who gives, who gets... and surprise, Google is on top. I always figured that the search engines had a symbiotic relationship, but playing with this Search Engine Decoder to actually see it is far more entertaining. And, I'd never heard of Overture, but it seems like all the big boys pay them for content. The Decoder is hosted by Search This, which "[provides] search engine optimization and web marketing strategies for the everyday web designer." I guess that's a few of us...
posted by pineapple on Nov 16, 2003 - 12 comments

Grub: The seti@home of search engines?
According to the New Scientist: "A distributed computing project called Grub, which harnesses individual users' spare computing power and internet bandwidth, began cataloguing millions of web pages this week."
Grub has thus launched before HyperBee, a similar distributed search project.
This link was previously posted on MeFi when it was still in the conceptual stage.
The project is being run by LookSmart (along with its own open directory project called zeal) but as the New Scientist article notes: "Website information collected by Grub is already being fed into one of LookSmart's search services, called WiseNut. But the collected data are also freely accessible to the public, so they can be incorporated into any web site or desktop application."
Possible Google competition or doomed from the start?
posted by talos on Apr 21, 2003 - 10 comments

A warning shot in the dark: For connoisseurs of clever turns of phrase: The phrase "a warning shot in the dark" popped out at me from a Google News preview panel as being a mixed metaphor. Indeed, a Google search reveals that the phrase has never before been used on the entire Web, which is rather amazing. Delving into the story, it appears by paragraph three that the mixed metaphors are appropriate, in this case.
posted by beagle on Nov 27, 2002 - 35 comments

Is Google's use of cookies unnecessarily invasive? Daniel Brandt, described by Salon yesterday as Mr. Anti-Google, says Google "has inadequate justification for planting a cookie that expires in 2038 on every user, and also recording that user's search terms, IP number, and time-date." Brandt is the man behind the NameBase conspiracy database (previously discussed here), and also uncovered the CIA's illegal use of cookies last March. He insists that Google's use of cookies, combined with the Patriot Act, allows U.S. authorities to "do a 'sneak and peek' search of a Google user's hard drive when he isn't home, retrieve a Google cookie id, and then get a keyword search history" specific to the user's computer. Oh yeah, he also thinks PageRank is undemocratic.
posted by mediareport on Aug 30, 2002 - 39 comments

Google makes another killer app? Rackmounted servers devoted to googling your own intranet or website. Just look at those specs and features. Google is selling 1 server, retail $28,000, and they are marketing especially for corporate intranets. But imagine the power that would be at the fingertips of archivists, students, and researchers everywhere with a dedicated, customized Google for their own website. Imagine being able to do a detailed search that would literally comb the content of every page published by Project Gutenberg. In seconds, you could call upon thousands of years of writing for any and all information on any specific subject. What kind of implications will this technology have long-term for students, researchers, and archivists?
posted by insomnyuk on Aug 21, 2002 - 21 comments

Google Catalog Search uses Google technology to search thousands of scanned mail-order catalogs, from industrial adhesives to designer clothing and gourmet food.
posted by danec on Dec 14, 2001 - 33 comments

Google Current Events: Always the innovator, Google's brains make it easier to find news (and archives of news) about all of today's events.
posted by anildash on Sep 11, 2001 - 1 comment

For Sale. Pre-owned Search Engine $250,000,000 o.n.o

Google is hinting at an end of year IPO for a measley $250 million. Is this the beginning of the end of the dot-com crash?. Via The Register.
posted by fullerine on Jun 25, 2001 - 22 comments

There's a Japanese portal site named Goo (not to be confused with A Boy Named Goo). I wonder if Goo will merge with the GLE Concern to challenge a certain search engine we all know and love?
posted by jkottke on Jan 20, 2001 - 8 comments

Has Google finally sold out? You may have already seen this via Robot Wisdom - evidence that Google has monkeyed with their search engine to give preference to partner Yahoo!'s pages. I guess it had to happen sooner or later, but I'm sad. Anyone know of a better search engine on the horizon that still has integrity?
posted by straight on Sep 13, 2000 - 8 comments

Google: advanced search — this is new, no?
posted by sylloge on Aug 9, 2000 - 8 comments

Google appears to be telling a story with their logo. Is this a fun and creative way to "extend their brand" (as the marcom kids like to say) or do they need to stop letting their engineers handle their logo design?
posted by jkottke on May 2, 2000 - 22 comments