search engine update.

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Author: Notess, Greg R.1,2 greg@notess.com

A9 improved and updated its toolbar, which now runs on Internet Explorer, Firefox, Mozilla, and Netscape. Version 1.3.1 allows Web site publishers to provide a menu of information to toolbar users via an XML file. This data is then displayed under the Site Info drop-down menu. A9 calls this a WebMenu. A9 also offers a customizable search box that can be placed on any Web site.

Ask Jeeves Spanish and Japanese sites are out of beta. Ask has upgraded its desktop search product with new features including improved PDF and Zip file indexing, the ability to specify folders, search term highlighting, indexing of iTunes metadata, and improved overall stability.

Exalead is out of beta and has a redesigned front page. Its claimed size jumped from 1 to 2 billion pages and still includes truncation, proximity, and other specialized search and display features. Exalead also offers a multilingual desktop search product, called one:desktop, in both free and commercial versions. This indexes dozens of file formats, including HTML, XML, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDFs, compressed archives, multimedia metadata, Flash, WordPerfect, and Outlook/Outlook Express. It includes a sophisticated spelling correction that is based on the actual content of the documents being searched. The commercial version is available at the workgroup and enterprise levels.

Feedster has added a few new sections. Its podcast search is in beta and offers a choice of searching either shows or episodes. The news search breaks out the official news media results from blog feeds. These two options join Feedster's regular search, feedfinder, and blog searches. Feedster has also been expanding its coverage of Asian blogs.

Google has added Creative Commons limits to its advanced search page. This works like the Yahoo! creative commons search limits but adds the modify option. At Google, the limit is labeled "usage rights" but has no link to the Creative Commons Web site. Google has launched a blog search [www.google.com/blogsearch], although it actually searches RSS feeds and does not always include full blog postings. Google's video search now uses a Flash-based player rather than its own short-lived special software. Google Reader, which requires a Google account, is a new Web-based service for reading RSS feeds. It can import OPML files from other feed readers.

Google Local has subsumed Google Maps and combined the map and satellite imagery with local searching. In addition, Google Local is now available on some Java-enabled (J2ME) mobile phones. This mobile version of Google Local displays Google map, satellite, and driving direction data graphically along with search results marked on the map.

Google Personalized Search is no longer just a lab project. It combines search history, a personalized portal, and personalization of results into one service. The results ranking is adjusted based on previous queries and which results were clicked. The history and personalized ranking portions now work for the news database in addition to the Web and image databases. Following up on MyYahoo!'s popular "block" option to exclude certain results, Google Personalized Search users can now remove pages or whole sites from their search results.

Google Book Search has finally begun to show more out-of-copyright titles from the Google Library scanning project. These have a vertical "Google Print" note in the right margin of each page. The easiest way to find some is to search for books published before 1922. Google does not yet provide any information as to which library supplied the scanned copy, nor does it have a limit for copyright free books.

MSN Search has joined with the Open Content Alliance (OCA) and will be scanning and digitizing about 100,000 books from The British Library. The books to be scanned are older, out-of-copyright works and should be available sometime in the future via an MSN Book Search. MSN Search is also starting up its own text ad program.

Open Library [www.openlibrary.org] from the OCA [www.opencontentalliance.org] is an impressive demonstration site that shows how digitized books from the OCA will be viewable and searchable. Several titles are available with a user interface that mimics turning the book pages. Search results are displayed with yellow flags. The OCA plans to focus on books no longer under copyright and includes members such as Yahoo!, MSN Search, the University of California, the University of Toronto, and Internet Archive.

Topix has added thousands of blogs to its coverage. The blog records have a tan background to separate them from the news search results.

Yahoo! has added blogs to its news search. The blog hits are displayed in a separate box to the right of the news results. When expanded, the blog results may also include images from Flickr that match the search terms. Yahoo! has a new podcast search engine [http://podcasts.yahoo.com] that can search for series, episodes, or both. It also includes lists of popular and highly rated podcasts and the ability to apply, browse, and search tags. Yahoo!'s site explorer [http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com] shows the pages indexed by Yahoo! Search on a particular domain along with a list of other pages that link to the URL. Results can be exported to a tab-delimited file. Yahoo!'s cached pages now include links to the Wayback Machine.

Yahoo! Desktop Search is now out of beta with a new LiveWords button. Select some words on a page and click the button for a contextual search based on the selected words. The new Desktop Search also includes a battery saver mode especially for laptop users.

Yahoo! Instant Search [http://instant.search.yahoo.com] is a new service in beta that displays a quick answer or the first result in a balloon below the search box even as the search is typed. This can also be turned on for the general Yahoo! search page via preferences.

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By Greg R. Notess

Greg R. Notess [greg@notess.com; www.notess.com] is a reference librarian at Montana State University and founder of SearchEngineShowdown.com.