Search Engine Information

Search Engine - an automated search system as opposed to one that is compiled by human editors. When an internet user types a search phrase into the search box of a search engine, powerful software scans the search engines database for words that match the users query. Each search engine has its own unique criteria for deciding on the relevance of the pages contained in its database to the search query which is the reason why searches for the same query brings different results from each search engine, even though the contents of their databases may be almost identical. Examples of search engines are Google, AltaVista and Lycos.

Directory - a human compiled directory of websites. When a site is submitted to a directory such as Yahoo, it is visited by a human editor, who then decides whether the site is suitable for inclusion, under which category it will be listed and even the title and description that will be displayed on the results page. It follows that it is much more difficult to manipulate rankings on a directory than it is with an automated search engine but on the other hand, results are usually more relevant than those returned by automated systems. Examples of directories are Yahoo, DMOZ and LookSmart.

Spider - not the hairy kind, a spider (or crawler) is the name given to computer software used by search engines to analyze or "spider" pages on the world wide web. The spiders roam the web following links and indexing the pages found. This is one reason why reciprocal links from other websites are so important when promoting a site. Theoretically at least it should not be necessary to submit a site to a search engine, the spider should find it eventually on its own, but in reality the web is growing at such a rate that they are always playing catch up. Spiders often go by such inventive names as 'Scooter', 'Googlebot', 'Gulliver', ' Winona Spider' etc.

TOP SEARCH ENGINES:

Inktomi is a trusted partner for many of the world's leading technology companies, it is the power behind the search box found on the world's top portal sites such as AOL, MSN, Overture (formerly GoTo) iWon, HotBot, NBCi and many others, reaching more than 80% of the internet population. Their resellers include: Position Technologies, Network Solutions, Lycos InSite™, ineedhits.com, Marketlea, Trellian

4100 East 3rd Avenue, Foster City, CA 94404, Tel 650.653.2800, Fax 650.653.2801

America Online - Founded in 1985, AOL is a world leading interactive service, with more than 29 million members around the globe.

22000 AOL Way, Dulles, VA 20166, Tel: 703 265 4670

Google - has rapidly become one of the top search engines, mainly as a result of providing relevant results quickly, by using a system called PageRank, Google filters a large portion of the irrelevant results. Google currently lists over 2 billion pages in its database. In 2000 they were chosen as the premier provider of search results on Yahoo.

2400 Bayshore Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, Phone: (650) 330-0100

Fax: (650) 618-1499

Alta Vista - started in 1995, AltaVista created the first multi-lingual search capability on the Internet and is the first search technology to support foreign languages via its translator Babel Fish. Alta Vista is one of the top search engines with over 500 million pages indexed and more than 40 million queries a day.

AltaVista Company 1070 Arastradero Road Palo Alto, CA 94304 Ph :650-320-7700 Fax: 650-320-7720

Fast / All the Web - established in 1997in Oslo, Norway. It is currently one of the largest and fastest growing databases on the web with a particular bias towards multimedia.

P.O. Box 1677 Vika NO-0120 Oslo Norway Tel: +47 21 60 12 00 Fax: +47 21 60 12 01

Lycos - there are standard search results, and categorized directory listings. Lycos has acquired Hotbot making it one of the major players. Lycos now makes use of the Fast/All The Web database for its results.

400-2 Totten Pond Road, Waltham, MA 02451, Ph: 781-370-2700, Fax 781-370-3415

Hotbot - launched in 1996, HotBot was originally owned by Wired Magazine, but has more recently been purchased by Lycos. Search results are served by Inktomi. Hotbot also uses Direct Hit to manipulate results.

660 Third Street, 4th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94117, Ph: 415-276-8400, Fax: 415-276-8599

Microsoft - Useful and comprehensive search facility from the Microsoft network, also makes use of results from LookSmart.

One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA 98052, Tel: 425 882 8080, Fax: 206 703 2641

Ask Jeeves - human-powered search service that aims to direct you to the exact page that answers your plain language question. If it fails to find a match within its own database, it will provide matching web pages from various search engines. Ask Jeeves provides results to AltaVista and is partnered with TEOMA and managed by ineedhits.com and powered by Inktomi.

5858 Horton Street, Suite 350, Emeryville, CA 94608, Tel: 510-555-1212

Overture is the world's leading Pay Per Click Internet search provider, the company was created in 1997. Overture's search results are distributed to thousands of sites across the Internet, including Yahoo!, MSN, America Online, Netscape, AltaVista, Lycos/HotBot, and many others. Advertisers pay Overture the amount of their bid only when a consumer clicks on their listing, providing them with one of the most cost effective ways to drive targeted customer leads to their sites.

74 North Pasadena Avenue, 3rd Floor, Pasadena, CA 91103, Tel: 1-888-811-4686 (Toll free in the US) or (626) 685-5600, Fax: (626) 685-5601

DIRECTORIES:

Yahoo - one of the oldest directory services on the net, Yahoo went live online in August of 1994. Yahoo was at one time THE favorite of everyone on the net. It is extremely difficult to obtain a listing however, with only around 4% of all submitted sites entering the database, the company was one of the first (along with LookSmart) to introduce paid submissions. They still have a commanding lead in overall search engine traffic.

3420 Central Expressway Santa Clara, CA 95051 Phone (408) 731-3300 Fax (408) 731-3301

LookSmart - currently lists over 2 million sites in its directory database and provides directory listings for AltaVista, HotBot, Microsoft and over 1000 internet access sellers (ISP's). Recently LookSmart changed from charging a once off listing fee, similar to that charged by Yahoo, to charging its customers 15c every time somebody clicks on their link. This was done without warning and in conflict with their terms and conditions without any regard to the interests of their loyal customers. They are currently facing a lawsuit in California for breach of contract, watch this space for developments.

625 2nd Street, San Francisco, CA 94107, Tel: 415-348-7000, Fax: 415-348-7050

Open Directory Project - The ODP is a web site directory built by volunteers which holds approximately 1,800,000 sites. The ODP is used by Netscape, Lycos, Hotbot, Altavista, AOL Netfind, Google and a large number of smaller sites.

501 East Middlefield Rd Mountain View, CA 94043, Tel: 650 937 3216

Northern Light® began in September 1995 in Cambridge, In January 2002, Northern Light® was acquired by divine, inc. divine uses patented classification intelligence and precision relevancy ranking to deliver accurate, relevant results from our Special Collection™ of over 7100 respected full-text publications, which are organized into Custom Search Folders™

Excite has over 14 million monthly unique users

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Search Engine Information

Search Engines - Directories - Definitions