Review Assignment on New Search Engines

     Phil Bradley (2004), in one of his regular columns in ARIADNE takes a look at new search engines to see if they are comparable to the current biggest and best, including Google.  In his article, “Search Engines:  A Mixed Bag:  A review of some new search engines”, Bradley reviews four new search engines to see how useful they are at providing helpful information, rather than simply list them as usual commercial sites.  These sites are Euroclips:  The definitive European directory, YouSearched:  The accessible Web search, Ujiko, and A9.  The results were split down the middle with two sites getting a “thumbs up” and the other two search engines being “very disappointing”.

     Ujiko is based o the Yahoo search technology and gives quick access to over 4 billion web pages.  It is described as an “unusual looking” search engine, but the test results are quite impressive with the level of “personalization” that it offers.  Personalization is a hot topic in the future of the search engines and Ujiko has taken an early and interesting step down to this road.  However, for the author one question remains unanswered and that is why such an unusual name for this search engine.

     A9 is another good search engine from a specially branded and operated subsidiary of amazon.com.  It provides good and quick access to date and like Ujico has interesting features that allows for personalization.  This site opened in Palo Alto, California in October 2003 and is able to offer Web search results powered by Google, as well provides access to excerpts from books (but you have to be registered with Amazon).  Another good feature is that the search history can be stored on the server, and therefore can be accessed by searcher from any computer. A9 is a good search engine and as it can check the content of books as well as web pages and is good for people who move from computer to computer a lot.  

     Euroclips:  The definitive European directory looks muck like an older style of “portal” services.  The home page is very busy with many different type of information (i.e., business news, travel, European holidays, etc.).  The result of the searches are very commercial in nature and not very helpful.  This site is dedicated to commerce and provides very few useful and informative sites and is good to look for a product to purchase.

     YouSearched:  The accessible Web search has been specifically designed for people with visual impairments and is an approved site from RNIB and Bobby.  This site is a site that can be categorized as a site that has been designed poorly with images that one would expect to find in a “primary school”.  The question that comes to mind is that although people might have a visual impairment, it does not mean that they should be treated like a child and be provided with second-rate search engines.  

     After reading this article I read another article that I would like to compare with this one.   In a recent article in PC Magazine, titled, “Forward thinking, Michael J. Miller (2005) writes about new search technology.  In his article, Miller talks about the fact that the search technology has come a long way, but he also expresses that he would like to see more improvement and progress.  Even though the search engines have indexed tremendous number of documents (Yahoo 19.2 billion and Google 8.1 billion), however the question still remains the same, how accurate, complete, and current are these Web sites?  Miller also expresses that he would like to see more improvement in the search engines to deliver more “local content” with the ability for users to rate the sites they visit rather than having computers themselves determine which sites are popular.  This concept called a “community search” allows users to comment and share information on the usefulness of the sites they find.  However, Miller goes on to say that more of the sites he reviewed (including Yahoo’s My Web, del.icio.us, Shadows, Clipmarks, Jeteye) had yet to achieve the critical mass of information that would make it “my primary research tool”.

     So it would appear that both Bradley and Miller agree that while many of these new sites are inventive and provide interesting information on popular topics, however they may not be able to gain enough users to stand up to the big search engines and so may eventually be swallowed up.  Miller also has concerns that the new community search engines may not have enough users, so their collection is not complete (because of lack of community participants).  The other problem with these community search engines is that spammers and people with political agendas could bias the content.  However, I agree with both, Bradley and Miller that we will just have to wait and see how really useful these new search engines will become.
Reference:

Bradley, Phil (2004).  Search Engines:  A Mixed Bag:  A review of some new search
     Engines.  ARIDANE, July (40).  Retrieved October 4, 2005, from
     http://www.aariadne.ac.uk/issue40/search-engines/intro.html.

Miller, Michel J. (2005).  Forward thinking.  PC Magazine, 24(17), 7-8.