Welcome to another edition of the Pandia Post, our bimonthly search engine news summary. Go to www.pandia.com/sew for the online version of Pandia Search Engine News.
Top 10 Useful Web Sites
The editors of Pandia share their favorite sites for practical problem solving, search and information.
As webmasters and journalists we are heavy users of sites that helps us handle large amounts of information or that guides to the right source. And, believe it or not, we also have a life — which means that we use the Web for other purposes as well.
Here are our top 10 favorites right now:
1. Google Web Search
Yahoo! and Live are getting better and Ask.com is a hidden gem, but none of them are able to beat Google in the game of high quality Web search.
That doesn’t mean that there isn’t room for improvement. We hate it when they redirect us to the sub-standard Norwegian version of Google, or seem totally incapable of finding the true home page of a hotel site, but still — most of the time it rocks!
2. IMDB
All right, we admit that this one isn’t work related. But when we sit in front of the TV, wondering what the name of that actor is and what other movies he or she has acted in, the Internet Movie Database comes to the rescue. It is packed with information on movies, TV shows, actors. They should freshen up the design, though. It is so nineties!
3. Amazon
Per believes that the Amazon knows him, as she has this uncanny ability to send him exactly the kind of books, CDs and DVDs he likes.
Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk are not necessarily the cheapest online stores around, but their ability to recommend new products based on your previous purchases is amazing.
4. The Wikipedia
Many search engine marketers hate the Wikipedia as it has a tendency of taking over the top position for many search queries. Then there are the academics that claim that it is unprofessional and unreliable.
The fact is, however, that there is not one free online encyclopedia out there that is even coming close to what the Wikipedia has to offer. You should always read with a critical eye. Fair enough! But the Wikipedia provides us with so much to read.
5. Techmeme
If you are into search and Web technologies, like we are, it is extremely helpful to find sites that gather, sort and present the recent news for you. Techmeme is such a site. If you like Techmeme, you should probably also take a look at European Wikio.
6. Tripadvisor
We travel a lot and need reliable information on our destinations, flights and hotels. Tripadvisor provides such info, and the fact that they include user reviews and photos, makes us trust their advice.
7. Google Maps
Here is a service that can be used to identify the nearest baker, find a satellite photo of your holiday destination (in some cases even street view photos), give driving directions and much more.
You may also like to take a look at the alternatives: Live Search Maps and Yahoo! Maps.
8. Online Conversions
Americans are good at posting recipes on the Web, but their strange reluctance to adopt — for instance — the metric system poses a problem for us Europeans. Online
Conversions helps you convert nearly any measure: length, temperature, speed, volume, weight, cooking, area, fuel economy, currency, clothing and shoe sizes and much more.
9. How Stuff Works
As kids we had these books that told us how a car motor works or why bats can fly in the night. How Stuff Works is a modern version for grown ups. It is amazing to see what they have been able to cover.
At the moment of writing the front page answers topics like “Do parallel universes really exist?”, “How Mosquitoes Work”, “How Quantum Suicide Works” (!!!), “How Winemaking Works” and so on.
10. Download.com
If you are looking for some good software (paid, shareware or freeware) CNET has a good service over at Download.com. The main tool is the software search engine and directory, but there are also links to other CNET sub-sites, like blogs, reviews, news, and more.
The Download.com directory includes software for Windows, Mac, mobiles and something they call Webware (software as a online service).
If you are looking for inexpensive shareware, take a look at Shareware.com as well.
See also our list of Top 10 Useful Web Tools.
Selected search engine news and articles from Pandia
Here are some of the other articles Pandia has published during the last couple of months.
Ixquick adds video search
The metasearch engine Ixquick tells us that they have added video search to their metasearch engine.
Is Dogpile really a better search site than Google?
A new study argues that Dogpile gives a better user experience than Google. Pandia is not convinced.
Search Editor - a new job title in online media
The Times has hired a Search Editor to work on searchability and search engine optimization.
LibraryThing, the MySpace of books
If your interest in books is larger than average, you should take a look at LibraryThing. It’s not new – it launched years ago but has evolved into a very interesting social networking sites for bibliophiles.
The New Live Search
Microsoft’s Live Search has had a major update.
Click here to read more.Podanza - the podcast search engine
Pandia takes a look at a new podcast search engine and directory.
Google Presentations
Google has launched Presentation, a tool for making presentations, much like Microsoft’s PowerPoint or Apple’s Keynote. But there are differences — some pros and some cons.
Rand Fishkin is Brilliant or Linkbait’s Characteristics
This article considers five pieces of linkbait and analyze what they have in common in an effort to help you design better linkbait for your own site, and thus help you garner links, traffic and sales.
TouchGraph connects the dots of Google searches
The TouchGraph Google Browser is a new tool that visualizes the connections between web sites.
Search engine markets around the world
The Search Marketing Standard has a very interesting feature section in its fall issue. The topic is “international search markets” and five writers present the search engine scenes of five important markets: the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, Russia and China.
On outsourcing search engine optimization to India
There is nothing new in American and European companies outsourcing their search engine optimization activities. Now, however, more and more send their assignments to India.
Google Book Search adds My Library and more
Google has announced new features for their book search service, including search for popular quotes.
Academics get access to Google search data
Researchers studying web search behavior may now get access to parts of Google’s raw data.
Podzinger search engine becomes Everyzing
This summer podcast search engine Podzinger changed its name to Everyzing. It is now a digital media search engine.
Sproose, video search with a human touch
The Sproose search engine has adopted the blinkx video search index and put its own voting system on top of it.
Fanpop, a growing Web 2.0 community
One year ago, we published a couple of posts on Fanpop, a Web 2.0 startup with a focus on sharing and commenting on links. A lot has happened over at Fanpop since then: It’s not all about links anymore, there are videos, articles, polls and more. And while the most obvious perk a year ago was sharing links on your favorite topic, today Fanpop is a community, a social networking site with a warm and safe feel to it.
Click here to read more.Google makes it easier to embed maps in web pages
The 15 seconds method to add Google maps and satellite images to your web site and blog.
New experimental search engine from Microsoft: Tafiti
Microsoft is testing a new visual search engine called Tafiti.
Google Earth adds Virtual Telescope
Google adds a sky map to Google Earth.
Click here to read more.Hakia, a meaning-based search engine
The future of search is understanding information, not merely finding it. This is the claim of Dr. Riza Berkan, CEO of Hakia, a meaning-based or semantic search engine currently in beta. His motivation for plowing the field of ontological semantics is ultimately to compete with the giants of the search engine industry.
Say hello to Think - the Google car
The strange story about how Google got involved in the development of a Scandinavian electric car.
Exploiting webmaster vanity in search engine marketing
Give webmasters and bloggers some link love in order to make them discover your site.
Why frames and search engine optimization don’t mix
Whatever you do, do not use framesets when designing a web site! In essence you are reducing the number of linkable pages to one. We use a music shopping site as an example, and take a look at iTunes while we are at it.
Are there free online encyclopedias that can compete with the Wikipedia?
A review of the Wikipedia and competing free online encyclopedias.
Search engine marketing feature articles from Pandia
An overview over Pandia’s guides to search engine marketing and optimization.
The Danny Sullivan Code (or “While Waiting for Dan Brown’s Next Book”)
The hidden truth about Danny Sullivan and the greatest conspiracy in history!
How-to posters from Google
Google has published a set of posters for the classroom, explaining stuff like how a search engines work, how to improve your search results and how to make the most of Google Books.
Google removes labeling of supplemental results
Google claims that being in the supplemental index will pose less of a problem in the future.
New search engine for FAQs - QueryCAT
QueryCAT is a new search engine that searches Frequently Asked Question pages (FAQs) found at various web sites.
The Hakia Scoop Bar
Hakia’s Scoop Bar is a browser toolbar that lets you save excerpts of text on the web pages you find while searching.
The robots.txt file and search engine optimization
On using the robots.txt file to tell the search engine spiders and crawlers which directories and files to include, and which to avoid.
Live Image Search lets you search for faces
Microsoft follows in the footsteps of Google and adds face search to its image search engine.
The problem of search privacy — and some solutions
Search privacy is a hot issue these days. A recent poll from the people behind the search engine Hakia reveals that 62 percent do not trust their search engine with their information.
Search Engine Land launches online community
Welcome Sphinn, Danny Sullivan’s new digg-like search engine discussion site.
Let Yahoo! write the search query for you
Yahoo! has introduced automatic search query suggestions on its home page.
Google: one million servers and counting
Gartner reckons that Google now make use of more than 1 million servers, spitting out search results, images, videos, emails and ads.
New site on alternative search engines
At the same time as Google is taking over the world, entrepreneurs are trying to come up with alternatives. A new site, Alt Search Engines, is trying to cover all these search tools.
Sensebot summarizes search engine results on the fly
Sensebot is a new search engine that takes results from Google and Yahoo! and summarizes them into one concise digest on the topic of your query.
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