In other words: First go ODP cats, if not available a taxinomy derived from the ODP categorization is applied. Then FAST adds a Narrow Your Search box, offering additional words associated with the search phrase. This function apparently draws from completely different sources than the Topics. Are users queries analyzed for the associations?
Both these features, the Topics and the associated common words are FASTs attempt at adding intelligent navigation to websearch. An attempt that several new engines are working on these days, with one of the best results so far provided by Exalead/AOL.France.
At Alltheweb those navigational features however have gone from the top of the page to the right hand sidebar - a decrease in prominence.
The advanced search, one of Allthewebs fortes, has added a very cool feature: you can filter searches not only for TLDs and domains, but for IPs and blocks of IPs too. A handy toy for the curious web professional...
What else? Check out the sophisticated Special features [alltheweb.com]. Highlights are
- normal.title:text
Finds pages that contain the specified
word or phrase in the page title
normal.titlehead:text
Finds pages with the specified word or phrase
in the title or in its head content
- link.extension:text
link.extension:jpeg will find pages
that contain .jpeg images
Definately the best advanced search on the web, with lots of useful features for webmasters.
It's a pity that all those goodies Fast offers on this showcase rarely make it to their portal partners.
Lycos.com has implemented some of them, and with their recent change of course back to strengthening websearch we will eventually see more of it.
(edited by: heini at 11:18 pm (utc) on May 8, 2002)
