SearchCap: The Day In Search, Jan. 16, 2007

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on
Search Engine Land and from other
places across the web:

From Search Engine Land:

Disclosing When Queries Are Autocorrected
Google Auto-correcting Queries from Google Operating System notes that Google
seems to have moved beyond suggesting spelling corrections and now
automatically does them for you. Actually, I think this is the stemming
feature kicking in. However, it highlights that it’s useful for search engines
to tell you exactly what they’ve modified, if they do so….
New Google
Checkout Promo; New Google Trust Worries
Gary Price pointed out something new to me on Google, the ability to filter
product search results from merchants using Google Checkout. But more
important, Google’s promoting this new feature right within its main search
results. That move, along with just having dropped map links to competitors
and in the wake of last month’s tips fiasco, rings alarm bells that Google’s
not thinking clearly about the best way to balance promoting its own products
and the trust of users. Here’s what you get at the top of results for a search
for sd cards 128mb: Notice how that search generates…
comScore:
Google Wins Again & IE7 Doesn’t Stop Microsoft’s Slide
It’s that time again — search popular stats for last month are coming out.
Actually, Hitwise sent me their figures earlier this month but I’m diving in
with the comScore figures that just came out. The main real news is despite
the Internet Explorer 7 launch, Microsoft’s Live continues to show a drop in
usage….
Google No
Longer Linking To Yahoo, MapQuest Maps
Search Engine Land got an email this morning from Another Blogger alerting us
to the apparent fact that Google had removed links to Yahoo and MapQuest maps.
Previously, a search for "541 Lexington Avenue New York" (W Hotel), for
example, would have yielded a choice among Google Maps, Yahoo and MapQuest.
Here’s the search result today….
Wikiseek:
Leveraging Wikipedia For Web Search, Poorly
The Wikipedia search engine has arrived — Wikiseek — but it’s not the
Wikipedia search engine you’re thinking of. Wikiseek is completely different
than the Search Wikia project backed by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales that I
wrote about last month. Below, a look at the disappointing new service along
with a revisit to how it is different from Search Wikia. The idea behind
Wikiseek is simple. Crawl only content referred to within Wikipedia itself,
which the site boasts will make it better:…
MetaGlossary -
Two Million Terms, Phrases And Acronyms
MetaGlossary provides users with access to over 2 million words, terms and so
on. It works in a similar manner to the Google define: function, though I’ve
found that it tends to be rather more comprehensive. Definitions for ’search
engine optimization’ resulted in 1 related phrase with Google and 15 with
MetaGlossary. Google gave a total of 23 definitions while MetaGlossary gave me
85 definitions. To be fair, this wasn’t always the case, since Google did come
up trumps on some terms that I searched for, such as RAC (I was looking for
Royal Automobile Club) and the MetaGlossary failed…