Structured data comparison engine FindTheBest has evolved impressively since its launch in August 2010. The site has become progressively richer and more usable. It has expanded into more categories. And, as of today, that includes local classified listings in jobs, cars and rental housing. FindTheBest is a kind of “anti-search engine” and the brainchild of […]
The Wall Street Journal is out with a story saying that Google is about to make one of the biggest changes in its history of offering web search, providing more direct answers and gaining “semantic” smarts to understand more about what words mean. I’m scratching my head, since Google already does this. Methinks Google’s PR […]
We’ve heard the search-related mantra “answers not links” so many times over the past few years that it sounds like a cliche. However in a mobile context the phrase has more meaning: a page of Google search results is ill-suited to the mobile use case. While Google has done many things to make it easier […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Bing Testing New Search Results Design Bing is testing a new design for the search results layout. The new design seems a lot cleaner, fresher and more organized compared to the […]
Yesterday knowledge engine Wolfram|Alpha announced an intriguing new paid service Wolfram|Alpha Pro. Gary Price wrote an overview of the new service, which will likely appeal to academics, data geeks and a range of other specialized users. Wolfram|Alpha is by no means a mainstream search engine, yet it has managed to establish something of a beachhead […]
Wolfram|Alpha (W|A) is launching a new fee-based service named Wolfram|Alpha Pro. In today’s highly competitive environment, you may wonder why W|A would ask people to pay for what many think should be free. Read on: you may decide to willingly open your wallet when you see what’s available. Since Wolfram|Alpha launched in 2009, I’ve often […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Microsoft adCenter Increases Ad Description, Adds Budget Widget & More Mobile Targeting Options Microsoft announced their January 2012 adCenter release update. The update includes three major additions to adCenter: (1) adCenter […]
I am a long time admirer of Wolfram|Alpha and I’m happy to report that my admiration continues to grow, as you can now access NFL (National Football League) statistics using Wolfram|Alpha. So, queries like: Tom Brady Joe Flacco Passing Yards 49ers 2011 New York Giants field goal attempts, field goals made Chicago Bears Record 1985 […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: SMX West Super Early Bird Rates Expire Soon – Register Now, Save $400 February 28 – March 1 in San Jose, CA Attend SMX West and get expert insights and real-world-proven […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Yahoo Image Search Adds Social Sharing & Continuous Scrolling Yahoo announced two new features on Yahoo Image Search, social sharing and continuous scrolling. Social Sharing On Images: Yahoo Images enables you […]
Google announced their answer to Wolfram Alpha‘s advanced math skills with math graphing functionality on Google search results. All you need to do is type basic and complex math functions into the Google search box and Google will return neat graphics. From basic charts for sin(x) to more complex graphs for x/2, (x/2)^2, ln(x), cos(pi*x/5). […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: AdWords Unveils New Top-Of-Page Bidding Options Google introduced a report in July that let AdWords advertisers compare performance between top-of-page ads and those appearing on the side (and now the bottom) […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Wolfram Alpha Offers New Twist On Flight Search: Literal Answers To What Planes Are Overhead You may not love this as much as I do, but that’s okay. Wolfram Alpha has […]
You may not love this as much as I do, but that’s okay. Wolfram Alpha has just launched what I’d have to put on any year-end list of the coolest search technologies of 2011: a tool that tells you, literally, what flights are in the sky above you. To access this literal, real-time flight search, […]
When you first begin using Siri it’s not entirely clear what you can do with it. (It’s also not clear how to access it.) Yesterday Danny wrote up some initial thoughts/criticisms of the Siri local search experience. In this piece I’m going to offer some general thoughts comparing Siri (on an iPhone 4S) with Google […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Google Travel Search Takes Flight With First ITA Travel Product Google has made what amounts to a promising downpayment on more ambitious travel search tools with its new Flight Search, debuting […]
Bing has expanded its weather-related coverage with more information and resources, and also updated the display of that information at the same time. The new features are available only in English-language markets. Bing’s blog post explains the new set of weather search features, which are available under the “Weather” tab after your initial search. In […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Hot At Sphinn: Measuring Social Influence, Matt Cutts’ Live Chat & More Social media measurement was the hot topic last week on our sister site, Sphinn. A discussion about measuring social […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: The Doctor Is In: Using An Unbranded Health Site Recently, I had an amazing experience. I was invited to be a part of an all agency partner meeting. Throughout the day, […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: New: Google Showing Recent Stories From News Sites With News Snippet Search for [news] or [new york times] or [fox news] or other queries that would bring up a popular news […]
It’s not even April 1st in Mountain View, but the April Fools Day comedy game is already over and I’m declaring Google the winner. Hiring autocompleters? YouTube 1911? Gmail Motion? Chromercise? Ding, ding, ding and ding. Game over. If you’re planning any big pranks tomorrow, skip it. Below, what’s out there now — and a […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Building Empathy For Googlebot With one persona, copywriters and designers will gain a better understanding of Googlebot and do a better job of creating a site that will appeal to him. […]
Like many people, I was amazed to watch IBM’s Watson supercomputer playing Jeopardy this week against past human champions. But could Google have done the same thing? Let’s go behind the scenes of these two search masters to understand what they can — and can’t — do.
The popular questions and answers site, Answers.com has announced they have been acquired by AFCV Holdings, LLC. for $127 million. AFCV Holdings is paying $10.50 per share for the outstanding shares. “This is a great outcome for our shareholders,” said Bob Rosenschein, Founder, Chairman and CEO. “After an exciting six years as a public company, […]
Google: Go to the head of the class. Wikipedia: You stay after school for extra tutoring. That seems to be one of the conclusions you can draw from a fun blog post today by Wolfram|Alpha founder Stephen Wolfram. Writing about the Jeopardy battle between past champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter and IBM’s Watson computer […]
Here at Search Engine Land we regularly hear from people who have created “radical,” innovative,” “next generation” search technology, promising to “fix” the “broken” search we all allegedly pitifully struggle with today. In virtually every instance that I can remember, these promises over-hype and under-deliver, rarely offering something that becomes part of my regular search […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Hot At Sphinn: Google Favoritism In Search Results, Eric Schmidt Steps Down & More The idea that Google might be favoring its own properties and content in search results was a […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Extreme Email Experiment: How Much Is Too Much? With some simple analytics in place, you can pretty easily establish the ideal frequency of your B2B email campaigns. Based on the results […]
Next time you visit Wolfram Alpha, you’ll be greeted by a shiny, new, colorful home page — that’s just one of a few design tweaks the site has announced on its blog. There are also some interesting tweaks to the results pages. One is the addition of linked data inside the search results, which you […]
Blekko, the long anticipated search engine founded by Rich Skrenta, has finally opened to the public. The service offers an interesting way to “slash” or create specialty search engines for any topic, along with new features the company hopes will improve relevancy. My previous article, Blekko: New Search Engine Lets You “Spin” The Web, goes […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Google Q3: $7.29 Billion, Display And Mobile Showing “Momentum” Google said it earned $7.29 billion in Q3 2010, an increase of 23% compared to the same period in 2009. Quarterly growth […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Google Turns 12 Years Old Today Today is Google’s 12th birthday and to celebrate, Google has posted a special Google birthday logo cake. The birthday cake was designed by Wayne Thiebaud, […]
Wolfram Alpha announced a native Android app is on its way to the Google mobile operating system, Android. It is expected about a year after they introduced the Wolfram Alpha iPhone app. The launch date is October 6, 2010 and they are working with T-Mobile to launch the app. The app will be available for […]
The days of search engines merely being a middle man are over. Search isn’t about sending users to the right web page, it’s about getting them the information they want as soon as possible — sometimes it’s a web page, but it might also be a sports score, movie showtimes, election information, or some other […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Hot On Sphinn: Using Excel For SEO, Paid Links, Link Building Strategies & More Every day, your peers in the search industry are reading and voting on articles that are shared […]
At first blush it wasn’t impressive to me. I assumed from a quick look that FindTheBest was just a collection of links and “best of” lists. It thus seemed strange that DoubleClick founder Kevin O’Connor would come out of quasi-retirement to launch a basic directory site. But as we got into it a bit more […]
Did you think the search engine wars had devolved into a fight between only Google and Bing? Think again. New challenger Blekko is stepping into the fray, opening to limited beta testing today. It offers a compelling way to “slash the web” and put a particular spin on your search results. Blekko isn’t a Google-killer. […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Report: Bing Generates More Clicks Than Google Chitika, a veritable fountain of data lately, has generated some new interesting findings from activity on its search-based advertising network. The company compared ad […]
Wolfram|Alpha, the fact engine has released a neat new feature today. Wolfram|Alpha is allowing anyone to build query driven widgets that can be embedded on any web page. The purpose is to enable publishers, bloggers, professors, teachers and so on to easily build quick widgets to add to their content and materials. You can build […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: French Newspapers Partner To Sidestep Google News A group of six French newspapers is partnering to create an online news site that they hope will be an alternative to Google News. […]