The StartPage search engine which prides itself on providing you with search privacy has decided to drop its association with Yahoo on its Ixquick version. Due to the amazing Yahoo passwords debacle, Ixquick/StartPage no longer feel comfortable partnering with them.
This isn't the only company that has decided to distance itself from Yahoo, since DuckDuckGo has also dropped references to using Yahoo from their site as well.
It's news of a sort, but to be honest, most people won't notice, and fewer will care. It is however just another blow to the reputation of Yahoo, which was once one of the major players and has become a sad also run in the last few years.
Trust search engines to give you good information? Probably not wise. There's a story doing the rounds now that if you do a search on Google for the words what happened to the dinosaurs you get a very biased and religious reply. Take a look at it:
The book linked from the right hand side of the page is also a Christian based commentary. It's worth noting that I did this search at about 15.15 today, and the result is still there, despite assurances from Google that they have dropped it. Google crowdsources a lot of stuff, and you can see that the Answersingenesis website is also the third answer down. The same result comes up if you search for what happened to dinosaurs.
Now, you might be thinking, ok, let's try another search engine instead! You get very little luck elsewhere.
Duckduckgo: Answeringenesis website is the first result.
Bing: Answeringenesis website is the first result.
Yahoo: Answeringenesis website is the first result. However, they do have some news items that question these results above it.
Gigablast: A YouTube video pops up first, and the Answeringenesis website is the third result.
Yandex: Answeringenesis website is the first result.
Ixquick: Answeringenesis website is the first result.
I could go on I'm sure, but I think you get the picture. DO NOT TRUST SEARCH ENGINES! (Ask a librarian instead!)
AltaVista was one of the very first search engines that I ever used; it was a jaw dropping moment when it came along in late 1995. The idea that you could actually put in search terms and get web pages back - AND the level of sophistication that it offered made it the Google of its day. When I ran courses, and asked people what they used, AltaVista was right up there at the top - and if you ask any other trainer I'm sure that they'll say the same thing.
It was popular, it had excellent functionality - what went wrong with it? I believe that there was a lack of vision and understanding as to exactly what an internet search engine was capable of, how integral it would be to users of the internet and perhaps most importantly - how it could make money for its owners. The Google model - so obvious now - hadn't really been considered at all, and companies with their other fledgling engines were unable to see how money was to be made in large amounts - they did advertising of course, but the idea of tailoring adverts to searches was a bit beyond them. Consequently AltaVista went through a long period of being sold and resold.
It was owned by Digital Equipment which then got bought by Compaq in 1998. Next year it was sold to CMGI and turned into a portal, which was wholly inappropriate. Then it was bought by Overture in 2003, which was then bought by Yahoo! in the same year. And that was that. Once AltaVista was rolled into the Yahoo! family it was never going to end well. I think that for me the real killer was a long period when the index just didn't seem to be updated at all - for several months in fact. People got very unhappy with that and started to look around and they discovered another search engine with a funny name - Google. People moved across in their droves - partly because Google was very good, but partly because no-one wants to stay at a party when the coke has gone flat and the balloons are sagging onto the floor; that's really what it felt like over at AltaVista.
This is the earliest screenshot that I could find of AltaVista over on the Wayback Machine:
There are a few things worth observing - the bold advert at the top of the screen with 'reach millions every month' - that wasn't a typo, they did mean month, not second. As well as searching the Web, you could also search USENET - another almost entirely lost and forgotten element of the internet; if you don't want to follow the link, it was a distributed internet discussion system, and it was very exciting, because you could send a message to a newsgroup, and other people *on the other side of the world* could see it in a matter of moments, and then reply to you. Seriously - it was a very big deal.
Time moves on of course, and all things come to an end, but in common with Danny over at SearchEngineLand I think that Yahoo! closed it in a particularly brusque and cruel way. Sure, it was just a bunch of 1's and 0's, but it's an early part of all of history, and deserved a little - no, a LOT more respect than Yahoo! has given it.
I couldn't really believe this, but Yahoo is using a satellite map of London that is so old you can still see the Wembley Twin Towers:
Really am quite speechless on this one! The old stadium - the one you're seeing here was demolished in 2003. So at a guess, we're looking at an image that's about a decade old.
Here it is again, closer:
What's interesting are the Copyright dates, of 2008 for GeoEye, I-cubed and 2011 for Yahoo! Inc. I'm still astonished.
Ohh, little bit of sour grapes here, or a twisted sense of humour - you pays your money and you takes your choice. Anyhow, search for MSN, Google or Ask on Yahoo and you'll get something like:
SiliconRepublic.com: Risky websites to be flagged in Yahoo! Search. From the news report: Websites that may harm a user’s computer just by visiting them will be
omitted from Yahoo! search engine rankings, following a partnership
between the search company and security firm McAfee. The new service, entitled SearchScan, also
identifies sites that have shown bad email practices, flooding users’
inboxes with spam emails.
SearchScan launched in beta version
today and is available for Yahoo! Search users in the UK, Canada, UK,
France, Italy, Germany, Australia, New Zealand and Spain.
Yahoo! Mindset was a great resource - it was the usual search engine, but with a slider option to allow users to re-rank results into either shopping or research relevance. It wasn't brilliant, but it was a great idea. And now it looks as though it's died a death. I found one recent reference in a blog to it, but nothing else. All the links (including those from Yahoo!) are dead, so I think we can say this is now defunct. Which is a shame.
News from the BBC: Microsoft wants to purchase Yahoo. They're offering £22.4bn in cash and shares (which values Yahoo at three times the size of M&S), and that's 62% over Yahoo's closing share price on Thursday. This isn't really that much of a surprise, since neither has been able to really compete against Google. Yahoo particularly has been suffering recently (and in the light of my previous 5-year post where they were trying to make more money it's even less surprising), so it's not any great surprise. However, I don't think that either particularly want to get married, and it's really Google who is officiating at this particular joining.
Out of interest - do a search for the story on Google, Yahoo and Live. On the face of it, the Yahoo news is superior, offering me an article from Forbes which focuses on why Yahoo can't fix Microsoft. Really interesting story, until you realise that it's months old. Yahoo however is telling me that its only a minute old. Live is giving me next to no interesting stuff, while Google is right on the nail. I think that pretty much says it all.
Delicious Integrated Into Yahoo Search Results. Well, according to TechCrunch they are. I say 'according to' because I can't see any sign of it when I do the same search (java). Yahoo have slid this in quietly and there's just a little Delicious square icon with 'x people bookmarked this page under <tags>'. Makes sense to me - we've already seen FuzzFind incorporating Delicous results into the mix, and since Yahoo actually own Delicious you'd expect them to start using it sooner rather than later.
However... it's annoying that I can't see it! I'm still getting the plain old Yahoo results.
The Newbie's Guide to Flickr is a very good overview of what you can do with flickr. It's very well written and easy to follow. If you've been uncertain about trying this resource, read this and then give it a go!
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