10 replies to this topic

[Jill]

Not sure if anyone has noticed (or cares) but Lycos is showing different results than AlltheWeb is currently showing.

I read that Lycos was going to be showing many LookSmart results and it appears that they are.

The first page of results (at least for search engine optimization) are apparently all paid ads (although not marked that way) and the 2nd page is where the real results begin. The second page is more like what you see on AllTheWeb's first page of result.

Apparently, they don't have enough sponsored ads at the top (6!), so they have to show even more (without marking them) in the actual search results.

Am I the only one who is bothered by the fact that users are being deceived into thinking the results at the search engine are algorithmically produced, not simply paid for?



Jill

[SearchRank]

Go sick 'em Ralph Nader!

[spidbot]

Some of us care Jill. I read somewhere that 50% of the click throughs are on the top 2 organic results so anything that misleads searchers in this way can't be good

I am married to a cynic who never clicks through on anything that says "sponsored" or "advertisement" etc etc and she cannot be alone in the world on that

:upsidedown:

[Haystack]

Jill, what you're seeing are not search results. They're "'optimized results sets." Here's the press release from the launch of this diluted content:

http://biz.yahoo.com...9/sfw015_1.html

[Jill]

Yes, I remember reading that before. Just never bothered to look and see it in action.

Now that I have, I think I'm going to be sick:

Jill

[bwelford]

You can find out the difference if you read the small print. Do a Lycos search and then click on the link, info, at the top and you will read the following:

Lycos Web Results are brought to you by FAST, a third-party Internet search and filtering company formed in 1997 at a technical university in Norway. FAST's results are relevant and on-target, designed to give you what you're looking for. In addition, Looksmart’s editorally-reviewed results are within the first ten results if relevant. Lycos also integrates editorial content from the Lycos Network as the first result only if content is available or relevant. It will be labeled as "from the Lycos Network" next to the result/component. The web results also includes paid inclusion brought to you by Looksmart and FAST.

In plain words, we may serve up anything we want to.

Check the About us link on a AlltheWeb search and you will find the following:

AlltheWeb combines one of the largest and freshest indices with the most powerful search features that allow anyone to find anything faster than with any other search engine.

AlltheWeb indexes billions of web pages, hundreds of millions of multimedia, Audio and FTP files, as well as tens of millions of PDF and MS Word® files.
AlltheWeb scans the entire web every 7 - 11 days to ensure that our content is fresh and that there are no broken links.

I presume that AlltheWeb is now using the Altavista robot. Can anyone confirm that?

Barry Welford

[mopacfan]

So why does anyone use these search sites?

It is indeed frustrating to get a bunch of paid listings that are presented as organic.

[Jill]

I presume that AlltheWeb is now using the Altavista robot. Can anyone confirm that?

Why would you presume that? ATW has always had a great robot. I've not heard anything about them changing it to AVs.

Jill

[bwelford]

Yesterday was the first time I saw the FAST robot since mid July. It is probably not the same robot although Funnel Web Analyzer describes it as such. It seemed to come from the FAST Extranet site that states a subscription service will be available in Autumn 2003.

The only robots I see very frequently are the Googlebot family and Altavista. The Altavista robot is currently visiting 30% more frequently than the total visits of the Googlebot family.

Barry Welford

[Jill]

We see Inktomi's "Slurp" a lot in here.

J

[bwelford]

Yes the Inktomi robot has been a frequent visitor during the last 24 hours. It was a rare visitor for my site prior to that.

Barry Welford