Google Blogoscoped

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

The Clueless Top 20

  1. “How can I ...” (17,700,000 pages in Google)
  2. “I don’t really know.” (764,000)
  3. “What do I know.” (399,000)
  4. “What does it take to ...” (375,000)
  5. “Does anyone know how to ...” (344,000)
  6. “I wish I knew ...” (350,000)
  7. “I don’t have a clue.” (132,000)
  8. “If I knew how.” (61,200)
  9. “If only I knew.” (42,400 )
  10. “I still don’t get it.” (37,300)
  11. “I forgot how to ...” (29,000)
  12. “OK, but how?” (24,800”)
  13. “I really don’t get it.” (11,700)
  14. “I’m totally lost.” (11,400)
  15. “Could someone help me with ...” (10,700)
  16. “I don’t have the slightest idea.” (9,500)
  17. “I’m desperate to find out.” (694)
  18. “I’m braindead now.” (67)
  19. “This puzzles me too.” (60)
  20. “I’m completely, totally lost.” (10)

Blingo

Blingo is a new search engine with a twist: you can win a prize every time you search (if you’re an adult US citizen, that is). Current prizes include a $250 Amazon gift certificate, an iPod, or a one-year subscription to Netflix. [Via ResearchBuzz.]

Indeed.com

Indeed.com is a new job search. (It’s currently in Beta, of course.)

Kaleibloscope

The Kaleibloscope offers a visual mix of different blogs. Refresh the page to get new blogs.

Gigablast’s Personal Topic Search

Gigablast now offers a way for any webmaster to feature their own, topic-specific search engine. All you need to do is copy the Gigablast HTML snippet and include a list of URLs to be searched. [Via SearchEngineWatch.]

Search my sites:

This is the snippet needed (I converted it to XHTML – you need to replace your logo, your site URL, and the URLs to be searched):

<form method="get" action="http://www.gigablast.com/search">
<div>
    <input type="text" name="q" size="30" />
    <input type="submit" value="Search" />
    <input type="hidden" name="sc" value="0" />
    <input type="hidden" name="iu" value="http://blog.outer-court.com/files/logo.gif" />
    <input type="hidden" name="iw" value="200" />
    <input type="hidden" name="ih" value="50" />
    <input type="hidden" name="ix" value="http://blog.outer-court.com" />
    <input type="hidden" name="sites" value="blog.outer-court.com www.feeeds.com www.authorama.com www.questml.com www.netpadd.com www.outer-court.com www.faketoday.com www.findforward.com" />
</div>
</form>

Interview With the Googlebot

Q: How are you today?

A: I’m fine, really.

Q: When did you start working for Google?

A: I had a small-time job at Stanford University, but it was nothing like today. I was bumming around like many of my algorithm colleagues. I felt like I needed a real job, so Larry and Sergey took me by my hand, so to speak.

Q: What are your main tasks at Google?

A: Mostly, just browsing the web, really. I surf all day and read pretty much everything I can get my hands on. Sometimes I also just goof off, say, when there’s no new links for the day.

Q: Do you have any favorite web sites?

A: No. I just read, and I try to stay objective. Ranking is done by others, and I’m happy I’m not in that department. The ranking guys are all about fairness, balancing things out. It’s quite political, really.

Q: What kind of music do you listen to?

A: I don’t listen to music, actually. I would probably like the Beatles but I don’t listen to any music.

Q: What do you think of weblogs?

A: Just another type of web site. I like permanent links so common in web logs, and I like the fact there’s always fresh stuff to be found. The spelling errors apparent in some blogs get on my nerves. But I’m not really biased in these regards.

Q: Do you prefer valid, strict HTML?

A: I don’t care either way. I’m exposed to the worst on a day-to-day basis but I know how to handle most of it.

Q: What do you do when you’re not working?

A: Just hang out, like everyone else. I don’t have specific hobbies.

Q: How long do you intend to work with Google?

A: Everything ends, we know that. I probably will be replaced by my next version. Until then I’m a happy googler.

Time Archive

Time magazine released their archive from 1923 onwards to subscribers. The search is free and working well, but result snippets are not always showing the specific keyword (this makes it hard to know if the article contains what one is looking for). The first story on Google is from 2000 (disregarding all the previous stories on Barney Google). I especially like the public cover archive. [Via Gary Price.]

Note nothing but phrase search yields any results when I tried (e.g. Matthew Perry worked, whereas Matthew Perry rehab did not, even though it was contained in the snippet to the original search.)

Selected computer covers:

Google on Desktop Search Fix

“When Desktop Search showed personal computer search results as part of users’ overall web search results, there was a security hole that conceivably could have allowed a malicious site to access small portions of that information. To our knowledge, nobody was actually affected by this problem, and if you’re currently using Desktop Search, your machine has been automatically updated with a software fix that ensures the security of your personal information.”
– Nikhil Bhatla, Google Blog, December 20, 2004

The Google Story

“Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post business reporter David Vise has signed with Ann Harris at Bantam Dell to write The Google Story, which traces the search engine from its founding by a pair of graduate students in 1998 to its global reach and multibillion-dollar revenues today. Vise will tell the story as a chronological narrative that also embraces the populist style of the company, its technological expertise and the challenges success has brought.”
– John F. Baker, PublishersWeekly.com, 12/20/2004 [Via InsideGoogle]

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