Forum Moderators: open
Although the reported database includes business worldwide, directly sourced rather than being spidered, it is unclear at this stage whether the engine will target purely Chinese Business or have a wider reach.
Onya
Woz
Acoona will launch in the US and China in December 2004.
[acoona.com...]
Traditional Search Engines focus on direct keyword matches. This technology holds the vision of understanding what pages a user might want to view, without matching keywords. The Search Engine with Artificial Intelligence better understands the users question through the utilization of an algorithm that restates the question and alters the verbiage based on sophisticated word permutations.
Acoona will allow Internet users to search for businesses according to an array of criteria including name, physical address, telephone, fax, business description, industry category, Web address and geographic location. The site will be accessible in both English and Chinese, Kauder said.
The biggest hurdle they will have to overcome is developing the search algos for the English Search in what, to the Chinese, would be a second language. For a pure keyword search the process would not be as difficult, although daunting. But to develope AI Searches in second languages ... phew, big job.
Onya
Woz
Also from that article it says that they're partially owned by the State Information Council of China. That's going to give them a leg up on any venture they undertake. Talk about instant credibility in the China market. ;)
The Chinese government, one of several large backers, has granted Accoona a 20-year exclusive partnership with the China Daily Information Co., the government agency that runs an official Chinese and English Web site.The deal gives Accoona data on some 5 million Chinese companies, which Accoona sees as a lucrative opportunity as U.S. businesses seek to do business in China ahead of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
Hmm. The words "impartial," "quality results" and "variety" don't spring to mind.
The artificial intelligence part is supposed to be better than Google and the rest.
We'll see!
Added:
It not even close on many searches. Keyword url's are ruling in my field.
More:
Using Overture as sponsored results. Sponsored results are not clearly distinguished from the 'organic results'.
No cache, no link shows up in address bar at the bottom of the screen when doing mouseover.
No organic results above the fold on most searches.
The other point to consider it the impartiality of the SE, to which HawkGirl has already alluded, and whether the Chinese influence will bring an overall reduction in quality.
Onya
Woz
CNET has the article here [news.com.com]
Any thoughts on Accoona?
[forbes.com...]
"I hope you all make lots of money," Clinton told executives at the launch of Accoona Corp.,
Who is this Horn? Is it short for Horny?
Seriously, some companies will do anything for publicity.
even come up with headlines like the above :)
8 directories and 2 international sites. In the top 10. Very primitive plural and synonym handling.
They also believe in returning lots of results from one site for some terms:
[accoona.com...]
It looks like it relies too much on on-page content for results. It should be fairly easy to game.
They've got a bit to go, methinks.
[edited by: bakedjake at 2:26 pm (utc) on Dec. 7, 2004]
"Accoona's artificial intelligence technology will elevate search engine performance to a new unprecedented level, allowing the most relevant search available today," Pfeiffer said.
Wonder when that AI will kick in. The search results seem quite feeble at the moment. There are a number of better business directories and search sites currently available.
Loved the part about the Chinese Government supplying the business database to them though. That just sums it all up nicely...
I had to page down to get to the non-sponsored sites.
Get a dedicated IP to get in at all, and the AI is clearly 100% hype and 0% reality. Altavista 1994 rather than Google 2004, methinks.
I have to admit that it offers a little more attention than I deserve on a few sites - but overall - I couldn't be happier.
When I have more time, it will be interesting to look at several more sites, to determine what they are doing on the less than 1m results.
Steve
I'm a little surprised nobody mentioned their use of the googol symbol in their logo. Wonder if that was accidental ;)
nobody mentioned their use of the googol symbol in their logo
Because that's the symbol for infinity, not for a googol. ;)
Both names resolve for the English site:
www.acoona.com [acoona.com]
www.accoona.com [accoona.com]
but in Chinese only this one resolves for me:
www.accoona.cn [accoona.cn]
First of all, you have to scroll down a page (5 results) of adverts which to the standard users wouldn't look like adverts;
and when you finally get to the SERPS, for the first 5 kws I tried out, out of 10 results 9 where the same site using url kw spam! (And the 10 was only vaguely related - it was about widgets, but in the wrong country).
:(
I disagree. I have already had hits from them. Their AI seems to get around the SEOs/SEMs that spam (G)
widget1.site.com
widget1-widget2.site.com
widget2-widget1.site.com
widget1-widget2-widget3.site.com
site.com/widget1-widget2.htm
...
Where site.com is the same site alllllll the way through.
[edited by: Sanenet at 5:10 pm (utc) on Dec. 9, 2004]
mysite.com
mysite.com/
www.mysite.com
www.mysite.com/
The biggest hurdle they will have to overcome is developing the search algos for the English Search in what, to the Chinese, would be a second language. For a pure keyword search the process would not be as difficult, although daunting. But to develope AI Searches in second languages ... phew, big job.
Judging by some of their spelling suggestions, they've got a lo-o-ong road to go.
The algo is really strange. Very kind to internal pages, and some home pages seem to be filtered for their main target phrases.
And in some market areas, I'm seeing pages from Russia and the Middle East that I've never seen before.
Very major two keyword combo (G finds 14mio results)
- full visible screen 5 sponsored results
- next 10 results shared by 3 URLs of a spammer; 2 URLs of two large but niche players, rest (5 listings) sup pages of the largest player, not the homepage though
Worst I have ever seen. Well, my son's desk looks a little worse.
Loooooooooong way to go!
Query accoona and spider, hit their results. If not dead, totally unrelated.
Looks like the lamest thing out there. Chinese government sponsored hey? Why am I not surprised?
