NEC picks Google for BigGlobe

[bill]

Google, an award-winning US-based search engine, has announced that NEC has picked it to provide web and site search services to the Japanese company's BigGlobe ISP/portal site. Google will provide custom search services to more than 38m pages in the company's Japan Index. Google is quickly becoming a major force in the search engine market, with licences to over 130 companies in more than 30 countries so far.
[url=biz.yahoo.com/bw/001218/ca_google.html]story[/url]

[rencke]

Why am I not surprised? I should be, I guess. But Google's low keyed, yet deadly effective, entrance into the international arena - with their automatic multilingual interface, gigantic index and superior search replies have very rapidly made them *the* force to be reckoned with outside of the US.

This announcement is second only to their deal with Yahoo. Japan has the world's second biggest Internet population, BigGlobe is Japan's #1 ISP and everything we have seen in Europe so far indicates that whatever SE is on the starting page of the country's #1 ISP is also going to be the #1 SE for that whole country. And in a position that no one can threaten - simply because very few users ever figure out how to change the preset homepage, which their ISP has thoughtfully already set for them.

Oh yes, Google is definitely rolling!

Onya
rencko

Woz is "flat out like a lizard drinking" (busy) for a couple of weeks and has asked the rest of the moderators to keep an eye on the store for him in case he is unable to connect, leaving some rather detailed instructions on how we should express ourselves. Talk to me, and I will answer with G'day mate!

[bill]

I just noticed that [url=netplaza.biglobe.ne.jp]NetPlaza[/url], which used to be a robot assisted directory/portal site of moderate bearing, was fully absorbed into the [url=search.biglobe.ne.jp/index-netplaza.html]BigGlobe Search[/url] site as of January 11, 2001.

[Brett_Tabke]

When was this suppose to start. It was announced in Dec, but I've not seen any referrals over there at all. Trying to find out more info on it. What tld domains are they going to service?

[bill]

When was this suppose to start?

I assume you're referring to the [url=search.biglobe.ne.jp/index-netplaza.html]BigGlobe Search[/url] being powered by Google? This has already started.
They seem to prefer Japanese domains (.co.jp, ne.jp etc.) and pages with Japanese text even when searching on English keywords.

[Gorufu]

> They seem to prefer Japanese domains (.co.jp, ne.jp etc.) and pages with Japanese text even when searching on English keywords.

I agree with Bill about Biglobe's preference for Japanese text pages. However there does not appear to be a preference for .jp domains. My .au domain has a number one ranking for related keywords.

Looksmart has also been building a Japanese index that Biglobe uses for directory matches. There are directory links on Biglobe's home search page that return Looksmart Japanese text web page matches. Also a link at the top of keyword search results pages return Looksmart matches.

dir.isize.com - Japanese Looksmart? uses Fast for keyword search results.

Bill, have you been able to find any info on the Looksmart/Isize relationship and when it started.

[bill]

[url=www.isize.com/]Isize[/url] is a portal run by the [url=www.recruit.co.jp/profile/profile-e/index.html]Recruit Co., Ltd.[/url] Recruit is into a lot of publishing and personnel businesses (temporary staffing -> headhunting & consulting) among other things. The Isize portal really focuses on Recruit supplied/generated/sponsored information from what I can see.

The [url=dir.isize.com]dir.isize.com[/url] portal does indeed look like the Japanese LookSmart. The [url=submitasite.jp.btlooksmart.com/ja/customerservice.jsp?synd=0002]site submission page[/url] points to a BTLookSmart [url=www.networksolutions.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois?STRING=btlooksmart.com&STRING=Search]URL[/url] (a joint venture between British Telecom and LookSmart Ltd and the site submission guidelines clearly indicate that LookSmart is running the search.

You probably noticed that there aren't any direct links to [url=dir.isize.com]dir.isize.com[/url] from [url=www.isize.com]www.isize.com[/url]. (At least I didn't see any ;)) You have to do a search off of the Isize main page and then there is a link to the LookSmart directory page on the top of the results page.

I found lots of information about LookSmart in Japanese, but nothing about the LookSmart/Isize/Recruit relationship and when it started. I'll keep looking.

[bill]

From the rumor mill:
The Tokyo Electric Power Company will not confirm whether it has agreed to buy 2-4% of Recruit's online job site, [url=www.isize.com/]Isize[/url], for up to 16 billion Yen. The Nikkei newspaper reported that a deal was imminent and that Sanwa Bank and IBJ were also considering picking up stock.
People are now wondering whether Recruit in trouble and needs money...