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Results are a bit repetitive to my eye but it's still nice to see its share growing and not too much spam - and the automatic default to Australian search is of course nice to have.
More here [gizmag.com.au] from gizmag.
They claim that
The key factor in Google's algorithm is based on the number of sites linking to a site - a significant difference to Ansearch's methodology which continues to gather data and evolve in real-time based on clickthroughs to sites in its search results. "It's the first search engine that actually listens to what the customers want and responds in real time," Ansearch Marketing Manager Louisa Williams told Gizmag.
I did not look at mysearch or ansearch when the earlier post was made - can anyone see if it's moved onwards and upwards in its reliability since then?
I'm not happy at all!
For all intents and purposes I see them as nothing but content stealing... &P.. #% <---that is a swear word :)
In the previous thread (now closed)
Do you have the URL of the thread please?
excell, was there something about yahooo.com.au (with the three Os?), as it just forwards to au.yahoo.com? Was there an Ansearch page there?
I've been looking into this since about 300,000 results appeared in google serps for ansearch.
It is very concerning and I call all Australian businesses to protect their brand, make sure they register or re-register their company name & misspellings in the .com.au space.
A quick tour through whois results shows some alarming trends here.
Apart from misspellings there are also lots of expired domains (that still have links out there) and company names that just didn't own the .com.au domain names.
These domains are associated with businesses large & small & government departments.
I don't like what I am seeing and I don't think some of our Australian businesses will like having their name driving traffic to ansearch.
It is quite easy for anyone to access this information and see for themselves.
Apart from this issue I am also concerned about the manner in which the cache function works as it creates a new url with the scraped page which is then indexed by the likes of google and uses the businesses title & content with the link of course going back to ansearch.
The sitemap & details also use the businesses content, links & meta data.
It's all very clever - but it just doesn't look or feel at all right. I have made a post in a forum, where the engine is asking for feedback, that expresses my concerns but I don't think there is any explaination as yet.
I hate to be negative about this as so far ansearch as received good press and are due to launch shortly, but very soon there will be other businesses noticing this and it needs to be addressed (IMO).
I'm also wondering about ACCC & AUDA's position on it all.
Onya
Woz
auDA investigation is well underway on the issue of questionable domain name registrations and it will be interesting to see what happens on that score.
[edited by: excell at 5:19 am (utc) on April 1, 2005]
Onya
Woz
There are some interesting articles beginning to appear at the same time:
Ansearch launches amid domain name dispute:
[zdnet.com.au...]
Ansearch ignores critics and declares business open:
[beerfiles.com.au...]
[edited by: Woz at 1:30 am (utc) on April 5, 2005]
[edit reason] linked URLs [/edit]
I did not look at mysearch or ansearch when the earlier post was made - can anyone see if it's moved onwards and upwards in its reliability since then?I don't think so, I don't see it as a reliable search platform or a help to searchers. I would be interested to know if anyone is getting any sort of useful results from searching on Ansearch? I mean - has anyone looked at this at the interface end rather than the dodgy traffic / popularity stuff?
Ansearch's CEO, Dean Jones, is covered by many Internet news sources as calling thier domain hijacking as "tempest in a teacup" crisis.
Let's see if Microsift and other giants think that Dean Jones's "youthful excuberabance" is anything that trademark lawyers will let pass.
What really bothers me is that Google cache shows the Ansearch pages on major-brand-name.com.au! How did they fool Googlebot and their billion+ Internet users?
