Teoma Aims To Kill Google 318
gwernol writes: "SFGate.com has an interesting article on the relaunch of Teoma's search engine. They are trying to topple Google as the leading search engine. If their technology delivers on its promise then it will at least be some real competition for Google which can only be a good thing."
Only a search engine (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Only a search engine (Score:5, Informative)
That said it doesn't sound like the new version will topple google either.
Re:Only a search engine (Score:5, Informative)
Um, the site up right now is in BETA. And the article clearly states "After spending the past six months perfecting the technology, Gerasoulis and his development team on Monday evening will roll out a souped-up search engine".
Are you saying that the current beta was discarded "months/years" ago and no one remembered to take it down, and that the "new" search engine to debut tommorrow didn't go through a beta stage first?
Re:Only a search engine (Score:2)
And arguing about this is almost as silly as the posts I was originally complaining about.
Re:Only a search engine (Score:2)
Well, you know the old saying about "assume"
And arguing about this is almost as silly as the posts I was originally complaining about.
Who is arguing? I was pointing out flaws in your reasoning/reading of the article.
Btw, it's an interesting tactic to complain about other's posts yourself, while at the same time label any comment on your OWN posts as "silly."
I Beta Tested this (Score:5, Informative)
Similar to (Score:3, Funny)
For newbies its ok (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:For newbies its ok (Score:2, Funny)
Where are the ads? I feel so disoriented without advertisements bombarding me.
Jesus, I'm getting defensive about a frickin' search engine. I guess it does have a cult following.
Josh
I don't think so (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I don't think so (Score:2)
Beating Yahoo/Altavista didn't require any truly revolutionary leaps. Beating Google will.
Re:I don't think so (Score:2, Insightful)
Exactly! I've said it before [slashdot.org], and I'll say it again: with a name like Teoma (or that other one.... Visivimo or whatever), nothing is going to topple Google. The name Teoma is just another product of today's pattern of "Let's choose exotic, foreign-sounding words so people will think we're *kewl*, man!". Maybe these people should try: "Let's choose normal words so people remember our name." At least that way, people won't be asking "Do you remember the name of that thingy that tried to surpass Google?" by this time next year.
Alas (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Alas (Score:4, Informative)
That might be because (according to the article) the new functionality will only be "available beginning at 5 p.m. PST Monday"
I'm not too certain about the timezones (particularly with daylight savings thrown into the mix; and no, I can't be bothered to look up a worldclock right now), but I think PST time right now is something like 2 a.m.
So we still have a goodly while to go before we can really see what this search engine is capable of.
Not that I think this thing can actually beat Google, but at least wait with judging until you've seen the new and improved version of the engine, not what they have now...
Beta indeed.. (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all, no cache. The cache in Google sort of sneaks up on you in its usefulness.. Whether it's because the website is down or because you're looking at an html version of a PDF or word document, you find that you're using the cache all the time.
More to the point though, how friggin slow is Teoma? I hope it's due to relative newness or something, because it's frightfully slow when running queries. Google flies, click search and the page comes back next to instantly (on a broadband connection anyhow), Teoma seems to be taking several seconds right now. I'd say Slashdot effect, considering where we are, but what kind of poorly designed search engine crumbles under the slashdot effect?
Re:Beta indeed.. (Score:2)
Whether it's because the website is down or because you're looking at an html version of a PDF or word document
I highly agree - I often find myself using the cache when google finds an article that has been retired (usually because of time), or when they've decided to put a stupid login on the page to block content to normal users.
Though any search engine worth it's salt has a copy of the original document somewhere (or can re-construct it) and they should be able to implement that feature... but that's probably not their primary focus at this point.
Re:Beta indeed.. (Score:2)
A few notes... (Score:4, Informative)
From the Teoma search page:
"Teoma delivers three types of search results Web Pages: Authoritative sites relevant to your search term. Web Pages by Topic: Top result pages are grouped based on their topics. Experts' Links: Pages contain directories of links for related general subjects."
Okay, great... but where's the "advanced search" option (such as Google's, at this page [google.com])? I know this is a "beta version" of the Teoma site; maybe their advanced search functionality isn't ready for prime time just yet. Or, maybe I've got it all wrong... do they believe their engine is good enough to eliminate the need for advanced search functionality?
Also of potential interest are a couple of links at the bottom of each search results page. These links let you try your search on AskJeeves.com [askjeeves.com] or DirectHit.com [directhit.com]. As I understand it, they're gunning for Google as their biggest competition, but it seems somewhat odd that they'd include links to what most people (at least people I know) consider to be inferior search engines instead.
Just a couple of thoughts
Re:A few notes... (Score:5, Informative)
Also of potential interest are a couple of links at the bottom of each search results page [to] try your search on AskJeeves.com or DirectHit.com. [I]t seems somewhat odd that they'd include links to what most people [...] consider to be inferior search engines instead.
Complete the thought. Ask Jeeves, Inc. [irconnect.com] owns both Teoma [teoma.com] (September 2001) and Direct Hit [directhit.com] (January 2000). The selected URLs prominently display that owership relation.
Ask.com? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Ask.com? (Score:5, Funny)
Did ask.com buy out teoma?
It isn't too hard to follow the link labeled Press Information [teoma.com] at the Teoma site [teoma.com] to find another link to the Search Engine Watch [searchenginewatch.com] report entitled Ask Jeeves Acquires Teoma [searchenginewatch.com] from Ovtober, 2001.
The good folks [teoma.com] at Teoma [teoma.com] were even nice enough to excerpt the following:
You may even notice that Ask Jeeves [ask.com] is plastered all over the contact page [teoma.com]. I don't think they're hiding the connection between the two brands from anyone.
Has the use of search engines [google.com] impaired our ability to follow links from one document to the next?
Heck, a Google search of your exact question [google.com] led to the NewsTrove tracking of the assimilation [newstrove.com]. Then again, the other results were a little iffy. ;)
+1 Funny? (Score:3, Funny)
I wrote the above, but I don't understand the mod.
Asking Jeeves [ask.com] the question posed by the OP ["Did ask.com buy out teoma?"] would have been funny. If only because it prominently returns this helpful link:
This result might also be viewed as funny, in that it partly refutes this claim [slashdot.org] that Ask Jeeves [ask.com] is considered by most an "inferior search engine." Looks to me like it can handle hasty questions [slashdot.org] from five-digit Slashbots [slashdot.org] just fine.
Re:+1 Funny? (Score:2)
Re:Ask.com? (Score:2)
Gerasoulis and the other co-owners agreed to sell their Piscataway, N.J.-based company to Emeryville-based Ask Jeeves for $4.4 million last year.
Did you even pretent to read the article? Or did you just not know that Ask Jeves is ask.com?
And this is Insightful?
Having read the article.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, let's just pretend that the technology that Teoma is using is roughly equivalent to Google's. Google is up to what now, 7000 servers? That's 7000 copies of Win2k, each including a full Internet hosting license, which is a fair bit more than your usual in house licensing.
Did they write their own DB, or are they fully into the MS world with SQL Server? We're talking about some serious bucks here that cannot be devoted to expanding hardware.
On the other hand, Google can devote 100% of their cash investments to hardware and research. Adding a brand new > 1G box with a couple of monster drives costs maybe $600-$700.
Re:Having read the article.... (Score:2)
Re:Having read the article.... (Score:2)
But will they throw crap at you? (Score:5, Insightful)
If they don't get that right, Google has little to fear.
Re:But will they throw crap at you? (Score:2)
Re:But will they throw crap at you? (Score:2)
Maybe it's dumb so its users can congratulate themselves on how smart they are. I don't think I've ever seen it do anything actually useful.
Re:But will they throw crap at you? (Score:2)
Re:But will they throw crap at you? (Score:2)
It also means that when push comes to shove, Microsoft Windows will never be stable or secure.
Re:But will they throw crap at you? (Score:2)
Quick and dirty review... (Score:2, Informative)
If they want to challenge Google, they have a long way to go.
Reasons to use Teoma over Google (Score:4, Interesting)
1) if they don't cave into the demands of the Co$ and delist sites whose outlook on Co$ is less than positive.
2) if they don't refuse adverts on a very arbitrary basis: they refused non-positive Co$ ads, as well as ads from businesses that sell night vision scopes (and not firearms.)
see:
http://www.politechbot.com/p-03325.html - google rejects ads from Co$ critics
http://www.politechbot.com/p-03260.html
google rejects ads from firearm-related merchant, accepts SPAM-WARE advertiser.
Gee, thanks google!
I care nothing for Scientology or firearms (Score:2)
I think I would need a more compelling, as well as practical reason to switch. Even if Teoma didn't give in to CoS, I'd be more interested in which search engine could find me the more relevant results that I'm after. I think the bulk of Slashdotters will concur that politics in search engines is a distant second, if that.
Re:I care nothing for Scientology or firearms (Score:4, Interesting)
Google is a fine search engine, but I much prefer the tools I use to not be influenced by what I consider to be poor politics and poor policies.
What next? France will ask Google to remove any links for neo-Nazi or pro-Nazi sites? Sites that detail history regarding Nazi Germany in any fashion?
Censorship is a slippery slope.
How can I judge what are relevant search results if the search engine is censoring some of the valid results? Certainly, a search engine's job is to display only sites it finds relevant, but out and out censorship should play no role in that task.
Re:I care nothing for Scientology or firearms (Score:2)
In any case, once you decide that one site is offensive and should be de-listed, all sites are fair game, as all sites are offensive to somebody.
Same goes for ad-words.
It is impossible for us to tell whether Teoma is technologically any better than Google, but if Google is going to remove links as possible results, then I expect they're crippling themselves and giving Teoma room to make that into an advantage for themselves.
Re:I care nothing for Scientology or firearms (Score:2)
Re:Reasons to use Teoma over Google (Score:2)
Even Microsoft doesn't have the source code of Diskeeper, so Teoma and millions of other people run a binary-only program which innards that have never been seen by a single non-Scientologist.
Great, isn't it?
Re:Reasons to use Teoma over Google (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Reasons to use Teoma over Google (Score:2)
Who? kill google... (Score:2, Interesting)
Let's Talk About This Tomorrow (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Let's Talk About This Tomorrow (Score:2, Funny)
5:00 Pacific Time: Teoma begins to learn at a geometric rate.
It becomes self aware at 2:14 Eastern Time.
In a panic (and because someone asked), Jeeves tries to pull the plug.
Teoma fights back.
It lookes nice and all... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It lookes nice and all... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:It lookes nice and all... (Score:2)
Trying it out... (Score:5, Funny)
Let's see how the search engines stack up:
1. Searching on my real name.
When I search on my real name on both Google [google.com] and Teoma [teoma.com], my personal web page [ofdoom.com] comes up as the first hit. Furthermore, on both google and teoma, 70% of the hits on the first page directly relate to me, although tenoma has a duplicate link.
Both engines preform well in this test.
2. Searching for a handle.
I have used the handle Pathwalker for years - let's see how well it shows up:
On this test, Google [google.com] Lists my webpage [ofdoom.com] on the first screen of hits. Teoma [teoma.com] on the other hand lists a lot of mystical mumbo-jumbo about finding your path in life; none of the info on ME which I am looking for and care about.
Google wins this test hands down.
3. Email searching
Many of my e-mail addresses have contained the string hungerf3 - let's see how many times each search engine can find this:
Google finds 1470 [google.com] hits of that string, all of which appear to relate to me, and of which it considers 21 [google.com] important.
Teoma, on the other hand finds only 13 [teoma.com], but they all appear to be of generally high quality.
Still, google wins this test as well through the sheer amount of information related to me which it can dig up!
Overall, one test was tied, and Google won the others. While Teoma appears to be a good search engine, it just doesn't have enough information about me in it. If they fix this, then I might start using it more...
Re:Trying it out... (Score:2)
Interesting point, but those of us who don't show up in the results and want to are required to pay $30 [ineedhits.com] just to be mentioned.
Teoma loses on this test hands down.
Here's an even better search engine (Score:2, Funny)
Still under development, but seems to work well. Sometimes it even finds what you are looking for before you ask!
hmm (Score:2)
Unless they split a market which can't support two similar search engines, then both go out of business and we're stuck with nothing.
Charge submissions. (Score:5, Informative)
References:
http://static.wc.ask.com/docs/addjeeves/Submit.ht
http://ask.ineedhits.com/
Re:Charge submissions. (Score:2)
People currently submit their URLs to Google because (1) it's the #1 search engine, and (2) it's free. Now Teoma wants to compete with Google (which has a large database) through a business model which will ensure that Teoma always has an uncompetitive database? Rediculous.
I think Google has the better business model. Charge for advertizing on keywords, and show the ads separately. That way, people don't feel like they're being lied to, and people get the best possible results (without it interfering with the search engine's business model).
Re:Charge submissions. (Score:2)
No. The point is to make the junk marketers and the porn industry to fork over thier 30 bucks per URL. What this affects is people just like you who have a personal page they want listed.
Teoma went down to 'frisco... (Score:5, Funny)
Comon'Google, raise up your cache and kick some ass, 'cause hell's broke loose in searches.
Teomahe deals the terms of agreement. "And if you win you get this shiny RAM Disk made of gold. But if you lose, Teoma gets your archive whole."
Teoma opened up their HD case and said, "I'll start this show." And seached "fire flew from his fingertips" and returned "The Path of The Arcane.". boy they indexed slow. Their ram made an evil hiss, a new seach missed and by the phrase resulted this: "The Path of The Arcane."
When Teoma finished, Google said, "Well, you're pretty good, you face-lifted son, but sit down in that chair right there and let me show you how it's done.
Seachin for releavance, go chache go. Returned "The Devil Went Down to Georgia - Charlie Daniels Band" oh oh oh , Feelin Lucky in the first search just go. Google, does your site bite? No, man, no.
Teoma bowed their head because they knew they'd been beat. And they laid that golden RAM on the ground at Google's feet. Google said, "Teoma, just come on back if you ever want to try again. 'Cause I told you once, you son of a gun, I'm the best that's ever been."
- Moral of the story? It takes a second rate search engine to bring doubt, before we fully appreciate the term: "In google we trust", which, surprisingly was found on google, but not Teoma.
-YoGrark
Ugly cheap logo (Score:4, Insightful)
The real question is, are they going to get rid of that lame, butt-ugly logo that just screams "cheap knockoff"?
Also, in my profoundly unscientific survey of two friends on AIM, neither of them were able to correctly recall the name Teoma. Just because it means something cool doesn't mean that it will actually be a cool name...
Meghan
If it's slashdotted... (Score:5, Funny)
Where's Teoma's caching? (Score:2)
Re:Where's Teoma's caching? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Where's Teoma's caching? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Where's Teoma's caching? (Score:2)
So they have the money, they just think that spending it on ads is getting them farther than implementing a cache feature.
Re:Where's Teoma's caching? (Score:3, Insightful)
Secondly, downloading gigabytes of data is not free, it costs bandwidth. Consumer-prices around here are about 0.05 $ per Megabyte, let's assume that Teoma pays 0.01 $ per Megabyte (Yes, I know that they probably don't pay on a per-megabyte basis, nevertheless they have to pay for their bandwidth one way or the other. If anybody knows how much this costs more exactly, please feel free to correct me).
To download 10 Terabytes would cost 100000 $, cheap IDE-harddrives cost about 2$/GB, so storing 10 Terabytes would cost about 20000, or 5 times less. (Please note that 2$/GB are retail prices, if you actually buy 10Terabytes of harddisks, I guess you will get some kind of discount ;-)
If you also take into account that you have to reindex sites frequently, (let's assume monthly), the yearly cost of operating the search engine is 60 times the cost of "storing the web".
So unless I'm completely off-scale with my assumtions, the cost to maintain a cache is actually neglegtible compared to the cost of basic search-engine operation.
Ten Minute Searching Score (Score:5, Insightful)
Query (relevant hits of top 5)
Google Teoma
Religious Intolerance by the Greek Orthodox Church
5 2(1)
Nethack 3.4 Spoilers
5 0
Vitamin Content of Artichokes
4 0
Average Velocity of Asteroids
4 0
Who won the peloponnesian war?(2)
5 5
Samuel Handelman Columbia University(5)
2 0
Harry Noller University of California Santa Cruz
4 4
Edward Dratz University of Montana Bozeman
5 3
Dangers associated with mercury thermometers
2 0
Did Turing have any children?
0 0
okay
Autobiography of Alen Turing(3)
5 2
Isaac Asimov's Middle Name(4)
3 2
Anyway, my time is up. avg. 50 seconds to run and squint at each query.
Subjectively, to all of these querries, the #1 hit on google contained the answer to my question (the EXACT vitamin content of artichokes, the NAME of the side that won the war,) while Tacoma, even though the hits were relevant to the question, it was not clear if the information I sought was actually in the returned result; except for my former faculty advisor and his colleague, which Teoma found just fine.
(1) I'm counting the Scientology hit as relevant.
(2) Google corrected my spelling, which Tacoma did not. I'll accept that from a Beta.
(3) Turing didn't write one. It was a trick question. Any link to a review, specifically, of either any of three (that I found) biographies of Alan Turing I counted as a hit.
(4) I didn't get his middle name, but it turns out he wrote a story called "Middle Name" which swamped the results. Google found specific references to the story, whilest Teoma returned links to lists of Asimov's fiction, but I generously scored both as hits.
(5) when I put my name in quotes Tacoma University either a) cannot find any matches or b) doesn't understand what the quotes mean. I assume b since none of the hits it finds without quotes mention me.
Anyway, I'm satisfied in calling that statistical signifance (95% chance) that google is better.
Re:Ten Minute Searching Score (Score:2)
Google only offers to search on the properly spelled word (while giving you the results for the word you searched for). It's definitely the best solution -- of course many times the word really is spelled the way you typed it. But there's been a few times i hit the keys in the wrong order, and google hiving "did you mean to search for friends?" as the first link is a great time-saver...
Fails to find E2. Nathan, this is unacceptable. (Score:2)
So I run Teoma searches for Everything [teoma.com], Everything 2 [teoma.com], and E2 [teoma.com]. None of them finds the site I'm looking for [everything2.com]. On the other hand, Google searches for Everything [google.com], Everything 2 [google.com], and E2 [google.com] leave me Feeling Lucky.
Nathan, this is unacceptable [everything2.com].
Teoma should still index by the text of anchors (Score:2)
a wide array of data-harvester bots have visited us, and the only one allowed to stay is Google's.
I knew that. I was complaining that Teoma did not take into account the text of incoming links' anchors.
For a while, E2 had a robots.txt denying everything (no pun intended) from everyone, and Google still found E2 on the first try. That's because it indexed links to Everything 2 from sites that linked to it using the text "Everything 2". (Teoma does not do this.) If numerous pages link to a page blocked by robots.txt, Google still indexes the page under the search terms of the text of A elements by which other sites link to the page.
Has Slashdot disabled anonymous commenting?
Ego Search sucks (Score:2)
Slightly OT: Google and the Google Toolbar for IE (Score:3, Interesting)
As an experiment, for a week, I turned off the address bar and used the Google toolbar for everything. I was really impressed by the results.
Turning the address bar into a search engine is a great idea, one that Google should think about enhancing. If done right, a Google Address bar could make the current DNS system much less important, and that's just a start. There are a lot of possibilities with a setup like this.
In the end, I turned the Address bar back on to get an idea of what site I was on at the moment, it's easy to lose track without the URL line. However, I did not get rid of the toolbar, and I use it daily.
Re:Slightly OT: Google and the Google Toolbar for (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Slightly OT: Google and the Google Toolbar for (Score:2)
Of course the best thing would be to make the input routine a bit more intelligent and send almost everything with a space or two off to the search engines...
Re:Slightly OT: Google and the Google Toolbar for (Score:2)
Re:Slightly OT: Google and the Google Toolbar for (Score:2)
Re:Slightly OT: Google and the Google Toolbar for (Score:2)
I'm of the opinion that Konq does handle this a bit better, but Moz can be set up for very similar functionality. Open up your "Manage Bookmarks" screen on a recent build and give a look at the properties on one of the links. In there you can configure "Keywords" that act like what Konq does, only without the ":" in there.
There's some more info on this buried somewhere on the Mozilla site. Caught a link about this myself not to long ago right here on
As I stated, I rather prefer Konq's approach to this, as you don't need to create a stack of otherwise bogus bookmarks for the URL shortcuts. Essentially they do about the same thing though.
Re:Slightly OT: Google and the Google Toolbar for (Score:2)
Re:Slightly OT: Google and the Google Toolbar for (Score:2)
Way back when I used to change the default home page of the browsers I installed to Yahoo instead of Netscape to dodge all the pop-up ads NS decided was good marketing. The interesting thing about this was how many of my users really didn't make a distinction between the Yahoo search bar and the real location bar. Amazing the kind of stuff you catch when standing behind a user verbally instructing them.
Google has probably seen quite a few of these kinds of searches, and compensated for them.
Also, with IE 4+, I think it's possible to use the address bar as a search engine, but you have to wade through menus to get to choose Google, and then you get a Microsoft-ized version of Google in that "Explorer Bar". I personally don't like it.
Mozilla allows you to make Google your default search from both the location bar and the side panel. Additionally, you can hi-light any text, right-click, and be offered a search on that text in Google. No stacks of menus to go through. There's a lot of Google integration throughout Mozilla. Probably one of it's key killer features for end users.
Re:Slightly OT: Google and the Google Toolbar for (Score:2)
no cookie (Score:2)
Maskirovka
Teoma ranking (Score:3, Informative)
Teoma is sluggish, but that can be fixed with money.
Re:Teoma ranking (Score:2)
Teoma is running [netcraft.com] ASP on Windows 2000 and IIS 5. Right now, no Windows server technology that I know of is *any* match at all for Google's über-cool cluster (the fact that Google runs Linux on its servers is interesting, of course, but what's *more* interesting is it's composed of (IIRC) 10k PC-class machines).
So, yes, I'd have doubts about Teoma's ability to scale up.
Re:Teoma ranking (Score:2)
April Fools? (Score:2)
Too English-centric! (Score:2)
I would think that software developers would have a clue by now!
J.
Search for "teoma" on Teoma (Score:2)
It's funny that Teoma has trouble defining its own identity. So, are you guys a search engine or a gambling casino? At least the users get to pick what they like most.
I wish them best of luck. Google is good now. What is to keep it from selling out like Yahoo is doing now? Competition is good. Now, I wish Teoma had a news archive.
I like it. Here's why... (Score:3, Informative)
I searched on keywords that represent products that I sell on-line. In each and every case, my page was #1 on the list.
I suppose this may change when they go "live and in color", tomorrow... but, for now, I can live with it
My study of Google, AllTheWeb, Teoma, and WiseNut (Score:5, Informative)
QUERY 1: LESBIAN
AltaVista: 29,176,797
Google: 11,600,000
WiseNut: 8,282,738
AllTheWeb: 1,166,487
Teoma: 442,000
Congrats to the pervs at AltaVista for having nearly 30 million results on "lesbian"! The jack-offs at Google come in a distant second at nearly 12 million results on Lesbians. Nice job to the occasional wankers at WiseNut on their 8-million results. AllTheWeb? Only 1 million results? Don't you guys jack off at all? What right does a search engine have to call itself AllTheWeb if they only get 1 million results on a query for "lesbian"? Teoma gets the "nice try" pat on the back. Grow some nuts, Teoma, then come back and play with the big boys.
Now, lets try something a little bit more sparse.
QUERY 2: Michael Jordan.
AltaVista: 27,980,822
Google: 1,320,000
Teoma: 245,000
AllTheWeb: 205,054
WiseNut: 72,998
Again, AltaVista comes out on top at 28 million. This is questionable, but probably accurate. AltaVista has really indiscriminate searching technology, and doesn't try to eliminate redundant or very similar pages (or subpages) like Google does. But, strictly by the numbers, again, Google comes in a distant second at 1.3 million. Teoma actually comes in somewhat respectibally this time at 2.5 hundred thousand; still, its not in the same league as Google or AltaVista. AllTheWeb again comes up short and dissapointing, especially given its name. Guys, don't call your engine AllTheWeb if it only returns 1/4 as many results as does Google! WiseNut apparently isn't too wise at only 72 thousand results for MJ. Come on guys, get with it. MJ's may have been retired for 2 years, but he's still big news.
On to something a bit more obscure:
QUERY 3: Leilani Rios
For those of you who don't know, Leilani Rios is a stripper who was kicked off her run team for stripping to pay her way through college. What BS. This is a recent development; so this query sort of tests for how updated the search engines are.
Google: 1,870
AllTheWeb: 723
AltaVista: 567
WiseNut: 426
Teoma: 74
Well, I can hardly say this is surprising. AltaVista (~600) is finally dethroned, Google revealed as king (~2k). While I'm here, I should eat some crow for earlier criticisms of AllTheWeb (~700). Perhaps they don't deserve the title AllTheWeb, but 723 results on this query isn't bad. Still, not even half of what Google returned. WiseNut again occupies the low mediocrity position with 426 results. Teoma...Teoma Teoma Teoma, coming in with a sorry 74 results. Come on guys, this is recent news, but its also big news. The girl was in PlayBoy magazine for christ sake! Again, Teoma, spend some time growing up, grow some balls. Then come back and play with the big boys.
In the interests of fairness, I'll do another query for a person who recently became news.
QUERY 4: Katie Sierra
AltaVista: 68,416
Google: 37,200
AllTheWeb: 25,447
WiseNut: 21,184
Teoma: 4,740
Welp, AltaVista's back on top again at 68k, though I doubt the validity of it. Remember, AV doesn't sort out very similar pages, as does Google. Google comes in second at 37k. AllTheWeb, again, not bad, though certainly not "all the web" at 25k. WiseNut again comes in on the short side of mediocracy. Teoma...welp, you're beginning to see the pattern. Come on guys, this is sorry. I might find more results than that for Katie Sierra by just searching slashdot! (;-).
Next is a personal query for a website of mine that's minor and unfinished:
QUERY 5: "Here is a listing of links to several sites that either argue against"
I used quotes this time because I'm specifically seeing if these search engines will produce a result for my web page (or one with those exact words, if any other has those exact words).
Google: 1
AllTheWeb: 1
Others: 0
Welp, what can I say? Google/AllTheWeb apparently appreciates even my trivial, marginal, unfinished thoughts. How dare AltaVista, WiseNut, and Teoma not have my trivial unfinished web page catalogued! No, just joking. I didn't really expect any search engine to have my page in it. But Google/AllTheWeb gave me a pleasant, ego-stroking surprise. This was what really impressed me with Google/AllTheWeb. What actually happened is I forgot about my web site (that is, its address) and typed in "pessimistic views" at Google(then today at AllTheWeb)...the first web page listed looked familiar and I wondered why until I realized it was a page I created years ago. Kudos to Google and AllTheWeb for including the "little guy".
Well, that's it. You guys get the picture. Google is still king. AltaVista does a good job at faking it, but we all know that AV doesn't distinguish well between duplicate or very similar pages. AllTheWeb, impressive, but certainly not all of the web. WiseNut, I've never heard of before, but you did half-ass. Teoma...you came in 2nd in ONE category. Not even 1st. But, not being on the bottom rung just didn't feel right to you. Feel good to be back home? Here's my preferences for search engines and why:
1. Google. Provides a lotta search results, well organized, and many great features.
2. AllTheWeb. Before I discovered Google, you were my girl, but now your just my whore
3. AltaVista. AV, though I'm sure you have (metaphorically speaking) fake breasts and a pushup braw, I still have a fond spot for you. Before I discovered AllTheWeb and Google, you were my girl. But now your more like the ex-wife who keeps on nagging me. AltaVista's kinda the thing I goto when I'm feeling nostalgic for my first car. Not really much use, but still got a little soft spot for ya.
4. WiseNut. Never heard of this search engine before and there's obviously a reason for that. WiseNut seems to be, to me, the very definition of mediocracy. I'll keep an eye on you and see if anything good comes of you, but I'm about as hopeful for that as I am that Enron execs will be found "innocent".
5. Teoma. Well, you did pretty shitty in every category. But you've got an excuse -- your the new kid on the block. The 16-year old girl who's mouth is so small you can't quite take in a whole . No, seriously. Teoma has some potential. I like the way I get fast results, and I like the no-nonsense interface. I think the more advanced way in which you organize things. I'll put you on my list of possibly up-and-coming search engines. But don't kid yourself yet. You're nowhere near the league of Google.
Despite my harsh, sometimes funny, tone in this post, all these engines are good. But "good" (i.e., AltaVista, Teoma, WiseNut), just doesn't cut it when you have GREAT engines like AllTheWeb, and when you have THE ENGINE, aka Google.
If they do topple Google, wow (Score:2)
Competition would be good (Score:2)
I used to use altavista, I still remember when google came along. For a while, I'd still usually try altavista first, and definitely use it when I was looking for something really obscure because it had a far bigger database. But when searching for things where altavista would give me 50 million hits, I soon learned that google would almost always have what I wanted within the first page.
I hope google keeps doing everything they're doing right, but I do like a bit of diversity. I hope someone else comes along with some useful features I haven't even thought about yet.
The information retrieval technologies involved (Score:3, Informative)
Unless you're an Information Retrieval Wienie (like me), you might not know about LSI and the VSM. The cool thing is that these are methods that work really well in the laboratory, but have scaling problems so are not found much in large-scale systems.
Google, we know, uses Page Rank to rank pages based (partially) on the "authority" of the page. It's not clear whether Teoma uses this or not (it is patented). LSI is also patented (by Bell/Lucent), but VSM is not.
For both Google and Teoma, they seem to use hybrid approaches:
- Word occurrence, with weighting (weight of a term in a document; weight of a term in a collection). This is fundamental to all search engines (it's part of what distinguishes an information retrieval system from a database).
- Statistical relations among words and documents (e.g., VSM and LSI techniques -- there are many variations). These look at either a term by document matrix (where each cell is a term count), or term by term matrices (where each cell a measure of the terms' pairwise relatedness).
- Clustering, to eliminate duplicates and identify groupings (Teoma seems to do this; Google does this in their directory. This is NorthernLight's claim to fame, and is patented)
- Authority ranking (it's not clear whether Teoma does what Google does, but this is probably a part of the mix)
Each search engine has its own recipe for how these and other factors are combined. If only they would share (and stop getting software patents)!
...Greg
It sucks. Not impressed at all. (Score:2)
I also smell rank selling in Teoma's results, as some results are suspiciously high in the rankings for no real reason whatsoever.
Eh... You can have that Teoma shit, I'll keep Google thank you very much.
teoma results are good, actually! (Score:2)
To test it, I did a search for something I'm actually looking for right now:
"italian hand painted ceramics"
for my friend's wedding present.
Comparing the results from ask [ask.com] and google [google.com], it seems to me that ask actually provides higher-quality results (for this search at least).
This is a real change, since I've until now thought that ask jeeves was a company with really bad tech (I had several meetings with their founder and 'chief scientist' and other lead team members back in the day and found them completely clueless. No, really, you cannot imagine how clueless... AND they were NT based!), and I was always shocked at how successful they managed to be.
Now it looks like they've purchased something that really works.
Rather reminds me of when Macromedia looked like they were about to go bust (no one cared about Director any more) and they managed to purchase Flash...
/. Crowd (Score:3, Funny)
Now which one of these is more geek friendly? (By the way, I used this Google [google.com].)
The thing teoma lacks (Score:2, Insightful)
Paying for Google? (Score:2)
I think it is fair to say that Google is one of the most popular and useful sites out there. I think more or less everyone likes it: how well it works, its features such as the cache and the usenet archive, and also how "clean" it is. Now - how much is this worth to you? I think very few (if any) sites are as liked.
So - how much is this worth to you? Personally, I would never pay for Slashdot, although I spend lots of time here. However, Google's usefulness is different. I think actually it could start a subscription service that people would sign up for - IF they handled it right.
I am also using Yahoo mail, together with its "Personal Address" feature that I pay for. I am getting more and more annoyed at all the ads though. If Yahoo could add a few more features I would like to have (like IMAP access), and guarantee performance and reliabilty, I would likely pay some more to see less ads. I think we should not be to sorry if many sites stop being free IF they give you good value for your money.
Not in immediate need... (Score:2)
Similar results == Zzzzz. (Score:2, Insightful)
Besides, this is still just a beta. No use in discrediting it until it's out of beta.
Re:Time. (Score:3, Informative)
Gaaaah! How many #$@#!$-ing times is this particular piece of FUD going to be spread?? Google DOESN'T do this. Google does allow companies to pay to have their text ads rated higher for given keyword searches, but this doesn't influence the stupid search results!
Sorry, Renraku; nothing personal. I'm sure you weren't purposefully trying to spread misinformation: you were probably misinformed yourself (most likely by the Slashdot article that started all of this paranoia). But I've seen this one enough that it's really starting to get to me...
Re:netcraft survey (Score:2)
Re:Buy games about brutal massacres (Score:2)
"Extend Your Search:"
"Comparison shop for brutal massacres"
"Find brutal massacres at eBay! Register now!"
"Search for brutal massacres in your local yellow pages"
Well, I'd like to read more of this
Re:It's depressing as hell... (Score:2)