SiteLines - Ideas About Web Searching

SiteLines on hold until September 20

I'm taking a small break from SiteLines for the next three weeks in order to prepare several upcoming courses for the Education Institute of the Ontario Library Association, and a new program, How to Be a Great Web Searcher, which is the kick-off teleconference for the Special Libraries Association on September 14. If you're thinking of adding an online course or teleconference to your "must do" list for this fall, consider the fantastic roster of programs offered through these association leaders.

Information Competency Links

Topsy Smalley, a librarian at Cabrillo College in California, has collected an interesting set of links on information competency. Targeted at California college-level information, the site also includes links to the major information literacy links from associations like ACRL; ongoing projects in information competency; and links to college-specific information literacy initiatives.

Governments are buying keyword ads in search engines

The BBC reports that the UK government is now paying for keyword ads in search engines after experiencing disappointing results following the launch of the latest UK government portal, Directgov.

This isn't new. Over a year ago, I noticed that the Canadian federal government and the Ontario provincial government were buying Google ads on selected keywords, clearly in the hope of driving traffic to their underused, fairly new, portal sites.

New sites don't often get a fair shake in search engines. Linkage requirements that search engines use to generate rankings favor popular, older, and better linked sites. New sites, even high quality ones, must often work harder just to get noticed, and search engine keyword placement is one way to drive awareness -- both to consumers of information, and also to those all-important web page creators who will (one hopes) link to these new sites and eventually improve their page rank.

Yahoo's Stake in Google

Until I read about it in an Associated Press story, I didn't know that Yahoo! had a huge stake in Google. It's not just this week's news that Google settled a Yahoo-initiated lawsuit by giving Yahoo 2.7 million shares (over $300M) of Google stock, but that even prior to the lawsuit settlement, Yahoo! already owned 5.5 million shares of Google, acquired through a $10M investment made in June 2000. This is a fascinating twist, as all this Google cash gives Yahoo a huge pile of cash to compete more effectively with.... Google!

An Analyst Takes A Peek Inside Microsoft's New Search Tool

In the August 2 issue of the Silk Road Weekly, Internet investment analyst and search-engine watcher Safa Rashtchy attended the Microsoft analyst day last week and has provided some of the most extensive analysis of Microsoft's beta entry into the search engine war. Some highlights from Rashtchy's comments:

"It was clear, to no surprise, that search is a major focus of MSN and MSFT, and that company officials were pleased with the search effort so far. The demos shown included interesting and unique features that involved combined desktop (PC) and web search experience. The performance of the demo was exceptionally fast. MSN also showed pure search results from its own search engine which is now almost functional but not yet deployed. MSN, in our opinion, is currently completing the first phase of building a good algorithmic search engine: build it to scale and create a large database (index). While this effort is quite complicated and involves a massive technology effort, it pales in comparison to what the second stage is: build a robust relevancy engine on top of the index. ...

"...Eventually (2006 and beyond) MSN will develop its own advertising network, replacing Overture/Yahoo. The search market, thus, has three major players but it will take MSN still a significant time before it can change the dynamic of the market."