Another WiseNut question...

[Reno]

We know that WiseNut is now a LookSmart subsidiary, but in terms of the results that they return, I have a brief question:

Are the results of a search *entirely* from their own database of crawled pages? Or, do they also include other sources, such as Inktomi for example?

[lazerzubb]

It's only there own database.

They haven't updated it for years though.

[jeremy goodrich]

Years is far from accurate. If you did through this forum, you will see people stating that they have had pages added in the last 6 months or so.

The service only went live as an 'alpha' in Sept 2001.

So I would say that's quite a bit of an exageration. :)

[ken_b]

Wisenut has been wandering through my site a bit the last few days.

Any chance they will be updating soon?

[lazerzubb]

Well it's an expression ;)
From what i know they have only launched 1 complete update of their index, and that was the first time they launched it.

[jeremy goodrich]

they have included data since then, and before then.

Perhaps they just ignored your sites? :) (joke)

[Reno]

Thanks everyone. I hope WiseNut becomes a genuine major player in the search engine field - given the "bloodbath" of the past year or so, we need more competition/choices. So far, they seem serious - we shall see....

[Net_Wizard]

I agree with Lazerzubb, my site in their index is showing Nov. 2001 :) . I emailed them and even talked to them over the phone that either they have to remove my URL's or update their index.

Reason being for the strange request for wisenut was that my site have changed into something else and their listing can be construed as misleading.

IMHO, if they want to be a major player in the SE world then they better keep up with their databases otherwise how useful is a 1 yr old database(pretty soon) in the Internet. They might as well print out their database in paper and store the result in some attic and hopefully future archeologist will have something to dig out.

[jeremy goodrich]

Welcome to the forums, Net_Wizard.

Their algorithm is based on the bow tie theory of the web (can't recall off hand where they said that, their PDF had some good info in it).

And as that contains rankings rules, etc. perhaps it could be that your site was in the same group as that of lazerzubb? :)

However, at least you made it into their index, after it went live...two months later, which means that for some time (two months or so) they were updating and changing things. From what I've seen it's been more than that, but for some folks, their story is the same as yours: you got in, changed the site, and they never came back to visit. :(

[lazerzubb]

Yes they can't like me, especially after that article i wrote about them and praised them for there way of ranking sites ;)

Well what was so special with WiseNut then?
When WiseNut ranks a page it has 3 major rules.
1.All the words on the webpage.
2.The text referring links and the words around them
3.And the significance and content of the pages containing the referring links.
WiseNut also has a system where they categorize the search engine results, they do this for every search. You can read more about WiseNut’s technology at [wisenut.com...] (Also link to the White paper)

So they rank there sites very much on themes more than Google does.

[Net_Wizard]

I have no problem with their technology.

Aside from relevancy and speed, what I expect from a major SE...that is if you would consider Wi$enut a major SE...is freshness of data.

Nov. 2001 to the present time, going 7 months, that's an awful long time for a SE to keep. It's common knowledges that web pages are updated, move to a different location and even deleted in matter of days.

What about if your site is involved in some of copyright issues or have redesigned your site to focus on something more specific but still relevant to your previous content or your site content can be misinterpreted as offensive(not about ***) by some group? Meanwhile your several hundred URLs are displayed at Wisenut saying something else?

That's why I've asked them to remove my site from their listing that is if they can't update their database. I still have to hear from them :(

Don't get me wrong, I'm not forcing them to update their database, all I want is a true representation and not get in trouble down the road for misrepresentation. I don't even care about their algo or ranking.