Google has expanded the option to search by style in their image search. Google already provided the ability to search for images with faces, images from news articles, and to only show photos. Today they announced the option to only show clip art or line drawings. Microsoft’s Live Search Images provides the option of displaying only photos or illustrations, as well as the option of displaying only images that include faces or head & shoulders.
Category: Search Engines
Yahoo To Begin Anonymizing User Data Within 90 Days
Yahoo today announced that they would begin to anonymize user data within 90 days. This includes search log data as well as page views, page clicks, ad views and ad clicks. Previously, Yahoo had kept unanonymized search log data for up to 13 months. Google currently keeps search log data unanonymized for up 9 months and Microsoft keeps it for up to 18 months. Yahoo says that there will exceptions to the limit for “fraud, security and legal obligations.” Anne Toth, Yahoo’s Vice President of Policy and Head of Privacy, said that the new limit is the “minimum amount of time we need to retain data in order to respond to the needs of our business while deepening our trusted relationship with users”
Microsoft To Begin Testing Updated Search Crawler
Microsoft has announced that they will be testing an updated MSNBot, the crawler for MSN/Live Search, in the coming weeks. The crawler will use the user agent string msnbot/2.0b (+http://search.msn.com/msnbot.htm) and will be crawling a slow speed during testing according to a post on the Live Search Webmaster Center Blog. No details were given as to what updates the crawler has received. MSNBot’s last update was in February when it began supporting HTTP compression and conditional gets.
Google Provides Greater Control of Googlebot Crawl Rate
Google has changed the crawl rate setting in Google Webmaster Center to allow for more control of the rate that Googlebot crawls a website. Previously, the crawl rate could set to normal, slower, and in some cases faster. The new setting allows for setting the crawl rate based on the number of request per second or seconds between requests. The range of values that are available “is based on our understanding of your server’s capabilities” and “may vary from one site to another and across time based on several factors” according to post on Official Google Webmaster Center blog. The post also says that setting the rate higher than the default value “won’t improve your coverage or ranking.” Yahoo and MSN/Live Search already allowed setting the seconds between requests made by their crawlers with craw-delay directive in the robots.txt file.
Live Search Adds Malware Warnings To Search Results
Microsoft has added malware warnings to the search results of Live Search according to a post on the Live Search Blog. When a link to a site that their crawler has detected as having malware is clicked a warning message is displayed. Yahoo released a similar service in May and Google has had similar services since August of 2006. Malware warning information was added to Live Search Webmaster Center last week.
October U.S. Search Share Results
Nielsen Online today released its rankings of U.S. search share for October. Overall search decreased 2.0 percent year over year to 7.8 billion searches. Google had year over year growth of 8.1 percent and received 61.2 percent of searches. Google’s percentage of searches was it’s second highest reported by Nielsen Online, only surpassed by April of this year when it received 62.0 percent. Yahoo had a year over year decrease of 12.0 percent and received 16.9 percent of searches. Microsoft had a year over year decrease of 19.0 percent and received 11.4 percent of searches.
September U.S. Search Share Results
Nielsen Online yesterday released its rankings of U.S. search share for September. Overall search increased 9.4 percent year over year to 8.1 billion searches. Google had year over year growth of 20.8 percent and received 59.7 percent of searches. Yahoo! had a year over year increase of 1.5 percent and received 18.1 percent of searches. Microsoft had a year over year increase of 7.1 percent and received 11.8 percent of searches.
Ask.com Upgrade Adds Structured Data
Ask.com has upgraded it search technology to include structure data according to post on the New York Times Bits Blog. Structured data is currently provided for categories including entertainment, health & nutrition, jobs and reference, with expansion into more categories this year according to Ask.com press release. The inclusion of structured data allows for information to be provided directly in the search results, for example a search for a television show displays local air times for that show. The site also attempts to parse and display answers to question asked directly on the search results page (including using user generated question-and-answer sites such as Yahoo Answers and WikiAnswers), similar to the way the original Ask.com was supposed to work. According to the Bits Blog, Ask.com CEO Jim Safka claimed that the new Ask.com “returns more relevant results for common queries than in the past” and in CNET News article Ask.com president Scott Garrell claimed that the new version is “30 percent faster” than the previous version.
Microsoft Plans 3 New Research Labs Focused on Internet Search
Microsoft plans to open three new research labs in Europe that will be focused on Internet search according a article by the New York Times. The labs will in be London, Munich, and near Paris and will employ several hundred people. At news conference Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that the labs would work on improving on existing search technology and work on new types of search, including searches from mobile devices and searches involving pictures and video.
Microsoft Launches New Rewards Program for Live Search
Microsoft has launched a new rewards program for Live Search according to a article by CNET News. The program, called SearchPerks, gives “tickets” to users of Microsoft’s Live Search search engine that can be redeemed for prizes or a donation to a charity. For each search a participant in the program receives one ticket, with a maximum of 25 per day. Participants receive 500 tickets for signing up for the program. The prize that can redeemed for the lowest amount of tickets is a ringtone for 105 tickets and the prize require the most amount of ticket is a Xbox 360 Wireless Controller for Windows for 5500 tickets. The program is schedule to run through April 15, 2009, allowing a participant to accrue a maximum of 5425 tickets, falling short of what would be required for the Xbox 360 Wireless Controller. The program is limited to up to one million U.S. residents and requires using Internet Explorer 6 or above, the Windows operating system, and installing a toolbar. Microsoft has run a number of programs tied to using Live Search including Live Search Club, Search and Give, and Live Search Cashback.