Forum Moderators: bakedjake
However, I think that if people really want some diversification in the SE space, they need to take the ball into their own hands, and start using and recommending other search engines.
This forum charter [webmasterworld.com] has some great guidelines, ideas, and engines that you could check out instead of surfing Google all the time.
A quick run down, in case you don't want to follow the link:
Naturally, there are more, those are just some ideas. So, what are you doing to push the 2nd teir to the front of the pack?
>I've sold
Nope. You just "introduced" them and it caught on, since it worked. I think, there is a major flaw in the assumption, that a bunch of SEOs says, "use this SE" and people use it.
From the days when I was one of the first systems programmers, I have noticed the tendency of tech folk to be, actually, surprisingly conservative, often. Whether deservedly or not, Google earned its way into their heads and hearts, and now, very few are willing to concede that G may have seen its best days, and to consider moving on, or at least giving alternatives a serious go.
Our new site is not designed for "re"search, nor does it try and be all things to all users. We just do not care about the teens and students and casual Joe/Joeanne Surfer. I am convinced the affluent, busy people who spend about 85% of all the money spent online are ready for their own kind of search experience, one geared to convenience, a very high relevancy standard, less commercialism, and with the built-in ability to focus (optionally) on their local area.
As such, we are NOT competing with Google, so, in and of itself, the conservatism of tech people is not a problem. Very few of "us" are going to want to use our new baby. Ahhh, but, as Jeremy indicates, these folk *do* tend to tell others what to do or use, and there is the rub.
A year ago, as we churned out code and prototypes, I was gnashing my teeth over the tendency of people to stay stuck in their rut, concerned that my peers in this industry and all their acolytes would not give us credit for our platform, especially for its many innovations. We in this biz or industry, like Jeremy, wield such influence. But very few, as a percentage, of those who consider themselves web-savvy, are, in fact, technically adept. How would these ever understand the fundamental ways we have changed the notion of search? If not to agree with our anti-crawler stand, at least to acknowledge that we can do things for users that Google or Inktomi-fed results simply never will be able to match (because their process cannot ferret out all the relevance-determining and contextual delimiting parameters we can)?
But then, I learned something else. Over the past year, as we have gone through our Beta and begun to get out and meet actual users, I began to realize that, over the past few years, while we - and, I daresay - most of the other members of WW and similar forums, have been agonizing over the direction and future and commercialization of search, many, many millions of fairly intelligent people have simply gone about the process of getting themselves educated.
In studying and communicating with the users, we have detected what may be a backlash against what these people perceive as the tech attitude. I was always aware of “our” collective arrogance, of course. But seeing the view from the other side of the tech gulf has been an eye-opener, nonetheless - especially the perceived tendency of techs, webbie journalists, wall street suits, and academics to talk down to these people, or to otherwise act as if a non-systems industry person could ever have a clue.
Now, I think that one of the many results of the great Google gaffes in recent days, along with all the other essentially anti-user moves by G and all the rest of the search market leaders over the past two years, is that it will encourage many of the most desirable searchers to be more willing to try new ways of finding things.
So, instead of fretting over whether WW types will see what we are doing, and tell others to check us out, we are designing simple ways to do an end run around the tech community and go straight to our best user prospects.
Now, I understand that we need to reach users on their terms, in their communities, offline as well as on. We need to attract them, not wait for some fellow-geek to tell them it is OK to try us out. It frankly doesn’t matter what we have to do to get the people we want to serve to come into our tent, because we know we have a better search experience waiting for them, even if the tech community, as a whole, hangs on to its bittersweet love affair with Granny Google.
That's not an awefully nice adjective there, rfgdxm1 ;) Most of the engines I mention read here (this forum) and have a rep that posts...besides, Teoma (till it was bought by ASK) was briefly covered here, and if the others "go places" they'll naturally have their own forums, as well.
An engine needs to start small, before it can become grand...besides, the 'engines' I'm interested in selling people on, generally don't involve PPC XML feeds or PFI $$$, as do Altavista, Teoma, Ask Jeeves, Alltheweb, etc / all the majors sans Google.
if G were to go those PFI routes, i wouldn't hesistate a second to jump to GigaBlast
All the engines (Google?) were once second tiers, I tell you, all , but why have they improved? Why? For us. We supported them and they've improved, thats why we gotta really encourage new engines/old engines which are still in the second tier list (SearchHippo? Mooter?) to improve and get to atleast 1.9 tier engines, lets clear out the second tier list!
As for our Gigablast, it has now qualified for 1.5 tier engines with some improving results and an understandable index of 238,723,040 documents. Well done Matt!
Heres my opinion on search engine ranks:
(The lower the ranking - The better)
------------Search engines that have their own index-------------
Google: 0 - the best!
AllTheWeb: 0.3 - Impressive!
Inktomi: 0.6 - Getting there!
AltaVista: 0.8 - Get some more pages in your index!
AskJeeves(Teoma): 0.12 - Refresh your index a bit!
LookSmart(Wisenut): 0.40 - Same goes for you!
Gigablast: 0.75 - Improving Rapidly!
SearchHippo: 1 - Well done, some good results would be superb!
Keep it up minor's, don't give up!
Sid
Well said Jeremy. True leaders are doers rather than just complainers as Jeremy points out. If we want change then we not only have to talk the talk, we have to walk the walk too.
I put a link to a search engine on at least the index page of all my sites. I always search Gigablast first. Do you have an international audience? Put up an AltaVista babelfish translator on every page - I did this on one of my directories and was amazed at how often it is used and the fact that AV gets a lot of branding out of it is a nice side benefit.
I think the suggested list is a good one: kids like Kartoo, so do some University profs. ;) Vivisimo is ready for prime time exposure right now.
M$, Y! and GG all get plenty of media attention, it sure does not hrt for some of the smaller engines to get free plug from us.
I will cover the errors in their system that I have documented and how they could have been avoided. Since my subscription list includes at least 1 person from literally every Fortune 500 Company and at least 1 person from most of the Fortune 1000 Companies, and their suppliers, it should help. Not enough though to make a dent in the number of searches G gets a month, but the pen is mightier than the sword.
So out of the blue she asked me where else she can go to, I said AllTheWeb.com. Result.
We're going to see a lot more average users who expect results becoming increasingly frustrated with Google's random changes. We as webmasters can help by suggesting alternatives. All it takes if for us to change the web search options from Google to AllTheWeb, or AV ...
This is nothing more than an opportunity for change. We should seize it.
There's no alternative to GoogleBot. Unfortunately.
VERY smart! Thanks for the tip, excellent!
I like the related searches feature at the right. Try: Hubble [scirus.com]. Pretty cool ...
It must be a difference in our sites, but ink, fastsearch and teoma are all over my site every day and each one gets twice as many pages, if not all of them vs G’s bot which gets one or 2. If gbot gets a 301 it goes away and doesn't seem to come back.
Sid
I like the related searches feature at the right. Try: Hubble. Pretty cool ...
Yes, the related searches are great. When building a technical site, I'd pay attention to them as possible suggestions for targeting.
Also useful, of course, for searching. ;)
(She) couldn't understand why she couldn't find something that used to be there, and is now gone.
Search engines - and especially Google - are today not only research tools but also some kind of bookmark machines. I see a lot of people who don't remember a URL, but remember how to find this page with their favorite search engine. If Google is changing its SERPs too often, it's destroying this funcionality.
That is just one illustration of how dominant Google has become in the minds of people. I guess it'll take time for that to change over to an alternative search engine, if it ever does. :-(
