Kartoo

Anyone know anything about it?

[dodger]

I like the look of www.kartoo.com but it seems to mainly serve up results based on Overture paid placements which would make it fairly useless.
Anyone know anything about this SE?

[jeremy goodrich]

Their interface is one of a kind, revolutionary, one of their employees posts here, it's a french based company, it allows visual representation of word relationships / web site relationships that is 2nd to none...

Hm, did I miss anything?

[dodger]

Yes it's very polished indeed but I noticed that the search results mirror Overture paid positions, not very clever or useful really or am I missing something?

[jeremy goodrich]

I think you can set preferences...

[dodger]

Can't see where - once you dig deep enough it tells you that those sites marked with a green tag or dot are "sponsored".
I noticed last week I searched for my site by the usual terms and it wasn't there, my Overture money had expired, I put dome money in the account and guess what there I was back on Kartoo but without the green dot. My site would normally rank highly for my search terms but it didn't appear until I was paying Overture again..........interesting.

[cyanweb]

All search engines need to maximise revenue (edit - well "balance revenue with results") - and it sounds like it is a meta-search engine focusing on pushing revenue links... I remember using them last year and it was mainly Alta-vista rankings... love the technology though...

[edited by: cyanweb at 12:17 pm (utc) on Feb. 20, 2004]

[cornwall]

"but it seems to mainly serve up results based on Overture paid placements which would make it fairly useless. "

Have to agree with that, it is totally useless in delivering pertinent results to searches...

..however it is very nice piece of software. Someone really needs to adress the issue of delivering decent results, and making money at the same time.

[cyanweb]

Oh man - I just went back to take a closer look - as mentioned I last used Kartoo sometime last year...

and yes it is!shockingly! bad now... when Kartoo used AltaVista and other MetaSearch results it was actually USEFUL and COOL - now it's just plain good tech - bad search results... maybe they just want to showcase the tech and not actually have people USE it for real searching...

Probably costing them more in bandwidth than making any money...

I could see using it as an advanced form of local site search... good for portals and the like... maybe...

[KartOO4U]

Probably costing them more in bandwidth than making any money...
Funny indeed. Thanks a lot but business is not so bad. As you can see on the interface you can select engines you want to interrogate and obviously exclude Overture.
In order to answer to Dodger, results on kartoo remain relevant...that's one of the reasons our traffic has increased 300 %/year last 2 years.
Nowadays every engine uses sponsored links (Goggle is the best example)...That's not enough to say he's not relevant. Make some requests on KartOO and you'll see.

[cyanweb]

Doh - I tried using it quickly before - and now realise the default was set UK! - and therefore was getting nothing relevant... me searching Perth (western australia) - ended up Perth scottland and a bunch of UK ads- my mistake (emberassed and hasty - my apologies)

Yes - now I am seeing relevancy - and am remebring how much I dug it the first time I used it :-)

Good-o!

[KartOO4U]

As a matter of fact KartOO has different versions you can select with flags :

EN = All english content
UK : Specific UK content
ES : Spain
DE : Germany
PT : Portuguese
BR : portuguese (Brazil)
IT : Italia
FR : French version

[cyanweb]

It just takes some getting used to - it seems to "feel" a bit limited - but the scope is there...

It's just the user conditioning of the "scrolling page" and getting past the "appearance of infinate choice" of traditional search may take awhile to overcome in the bigger sense.

Great concept - and I can see applications as internal site maps etc... have to make a point to give it some "real world" use :-)

[KartOO4U]

You can test an application at www.channelminds.com

[adamas]

I slated Kartoo's relevancy last time I posted about it. It does seem to have improved though and the interface is better than ever as well. If you gave up on it due to lack of relevance at least have another look and see if you still think it is the case. (Note the searches I was checking, both then and now, are not competitive)

[dodger]

KartOO4U - The sponsored links should be noted as such or seperated out - at present it displays all in one - hiding the fact that some are only there because of the $.
I've got nothing against sponsored links , I use them myself quite a lot but they should be separated from the general results.

[mosschops]

The UK site looks more like googly results - with bits of everything else. Very cool layout - nice to see someone doing it differently.

[KartOO4U]

Dodger; I'll start thinking you publish things without verification. sponsored links on KartOO are clearly identified on result's maps : Separated on the right margin of your screen and when present on the map identified by a green point. When you make a mouse over on a result you'll have a summary on left margin with once again source identified.

[dodger]

The sponsored results are shown on the left hand side but nothing else is very clear.
The overall results are effected by the sponsored results but that is not really clear anywhere - green dot? How is anyone supposed to know what that is?
There are sites that are identified as sponsored results in the left hand margin but they don't have a green dot?

[cyanweb]

I see dodger's point - having a "green dot" by all sponsored links shown anywhere on the interface / search results would clear that issue up...

[coconutz]

Having the sponsored listings separated from the regular results (map) would eliminate all of the confusion.

>>When you make a mouse over on a result you'll have a summary on left margin with once again source identified.

Mousing over the listings with a green dot from the R/H column labeled "Found Sites" doesn't identify the source.

The green dot looks more like an endorsement than an attempt to identify a sponsored listing.

[cyanweb]

I think people need to realise that paid search is good - in the sense you have human thinking matching your keywords. If you are looking for a business / commerce related topic it's good...

I know a few of my clients have said on Google they simply search the ads first... it's relevant...

Though still others have been complaining (as I _used_to do SEO - not worth the headache now) - and are opting to use some other new search engine or meta search elsewhere...

As long as the link _is_ relevant - more power to the paid matched keyword...

There is a balance out there...

[KartOO4U]

That's right Cyanweb.

[dodger]

You have now avoided the issue altogether - no one is complaining about paid links - is that clear?

The complaint is that the paid links are not clearly identified.

[KartOO4U]

They are not identified the way you would like, but no problem with other users.