I came across these ads the other day and thought I would share them. These ran back in 1999/2000 when Snap.com was promoting itself heavily on TV. They are focusing on the fact that Snap.com used GlobalBrain technology to power their search.

Why is this relevant to site search? SLI Systems acquired the GlobalBrain technology back in 2001 and it is used in our Learning Search product.

We’re now powering the site search on Danny Sullivan’s Search Engine Land. Danny has requested a slightly different format to normal - with with the facets at the bottom. You can get to them by clicking the more options link beside the sorting options:

Most of our customers have the facets either at the top, or the left hand side. Those that want to conserve space will either use drop down for the facets or use java script to hide them (e.g. see Edwin Watts). Danny’s approach is different but not one I would recommend to most of our customers - almost no one uses the facets at the bottom of the search engine land page.

Search Engine Land is a relatively new site. Danny started it when he left Search Engine Watch late last year. Because it is new it doesn’t have that much content yet - but is getting bigger every day. It is interesting watching the top search terms. iCrossing has been popular - mainly because they were having a few issues with the company and Danny inadvertently gave people a forum to vent their frustrations in the Searcharazzi section. Disapointingly he shut it down - things were getting interesting.

Danny is the long time coordinator of the Search Engine Strategies show. Next week is the San Jose show. This is going to be the last one that Danny will be organizing. We will be exhibiting there and would love to see you if you’re at the show.

Google posted a video showing how Carolina Rustica (one of our customers) are using Google Adwords and other products - like Google Checkout. Richard Sexton said they shot over 8 hours of footage to make this 2 1/2 minute clip.

It’s a nice video - it puts a very human face onto ecommerce.

In the last few weeks Yahoo has launched Search Suggest and they’re testing an enhanced version of this called Search Assist.

This is part of a growing trend of using AJAX in search. Yahoo’s new tools are really useful - they help you complete your search query as you start typing. Search assist goes a step further by suggesting related terms using some old Alta Vista technology called Prisma. The search suggest technology has been done by others - but it’s nice to see a major search engine offering this feature - I really like it.

Incidentally I think, as well as improving the user experience it could have a positive impact on Yahoo’s revenues from paid search… The suggestions that are shown will be popular queries that they have seen before. This will mean that these will become more popular and there will be less people searching in the tail. The more popular search terms are monetized better than the tail terms because there is more competition for them. Yahoo could give more weight to search terms that have higher bids although this would have to be done carefully to ensure it didn’t negatively impact the user experience.

When I tried this I noticed the search suggest tool is only on the home page, not on the search results page. It would be nice if it was there too.

As an aside I remember talking to Alta Vista about the Prisma technology years ago - before they were acquired by Yahoo. They were considered replacing the Prisma technology with our Related Search technology - but we never quite got a deal worked out.