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Amazon's Search Engine Goes Live
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Apr 14, 2004 06:06 PM
from the everyone-is-getting-into-the-game dept.
from the everyone-is-getting-into-the-game dept.
fjordboy writes "John Battelle has posted a discussion and review of Amazon's new search engine: a9.com. From the article:"What makes this particularly noteworthy is that A9 is built quite literally on top of Google. In short, Amazon has taken the best of Google, and made it, to my mind, a lot better. Sound familiar? Yup, it's what Google did to Yahoo, Yahoo to Netscape...you get the picture." "
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Amazon's Search Engine Goes Live
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Ads (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ads (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.gamerpride.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday June 22 2006, @10:56AM)
Yahoo with its meta tags and Google with its linkback system makes them two different search engines.
Re:Ads (Score:5, Funny)
(http://skylab.org/~plumpy/)
You're being too interpretive with it. The poster clearly said it was quite literally on top. This obviously means that the Amazon servers are directly above the Google servers, which are directly above the Yahoo servers, which are directly above the Netscape servers.
Oh, unless it's yet another misuse of the word "literally" to mean "metaphorically". I guess we'll never know.
Tinfoil Hat Not Required (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.dixie-chicks.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday July 24, @05:17PM)
Search History: All your searches at A9.com are stored on our servers and shown to you at any time from any computer you use. Clicking on a link performs the search again. You can hide the window at any time and a password will be required to open it again. You can edit your history, for example, to hide an entry.
Click History: If any of the web search results include a site that you have seen before, it's marked on the result. We even tell you the last time you visited that site.
You don't have to be among the tin-foil hat crowd to have a low regard for this "feature". There are just some searches that you *don't* want to remember.
It's not a stretch to imagine a situation like this:
Boss: "Google me some info on our competitors."
Lackey: "Check out this new A9.com search!"
Boss: "What's that link there? I didn't know you were interested in goats... [Click] Damn! You're fired!"
Re:Tinfoil Hat Not Required (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.dragonswest.com/ | Last Journal: Monday November 05, @07:35PM)
As if you couldn't find history in Mozilla...
Could be worse, could be the boss turns to you and winks.
what's their plan... track most popular searches, keep a cookie full of it, suggest these fine things the next time you go to Amazon.com... could even help them anticipate what to carry [We need to carry ... goats?] as if their marketing data isn't already legion...
Re:Tinfoil Hat Not Required (Score:5, Informative)
Mozilla history is stored on your local harddrive. You can easily delete it completely, or just disable the recording.
A visible history in the search engine will be something else- not only do you have no straightforward reliable way to delete the records, but the records could follow you around from home to job and back.
Re:Tinfoil Hat Not Required (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://slashdot.org/)
So basically they can track whatever pages you go to.
Re:Tinfoil Hat Not Required (Score:5, Interesting)
But they do seem to have something for the tinfoil hat crowd: generic.a9.com [a9.com]. They claim that they dont keep any info from searches done through there.
If you would prefer not to be recognized on our site, we recommend that you use our alternate service located at generic.A9.com. On generic.a9.com, we will not recognize your A9.com or Amazon.com cookie. Information we gather on generic.a9.com will not be used in our data analysis (other than to detect abuse) and will not be used to personalize the services we offer you. [link] [a9.com]
Re:Tinfoil Hat Not Required (Score:5, Informative)
(Last Journal: Sunday April 16 2006, @10:03PM)
I was going to give you a Proxomitron script to convert these nosey links into real links; in doing do, I took a look at the page source for Amazon's search.
I found a few very interesting things:It look as if one's private search history is sent, in the clear (without SSL encryption) to a hidden frame. Good luck keeping it private if someone else administers the proxy server you use.
Consider that you log in to Amazon's search: will logging into Amazon search from work mean that the IT guys at work get to see the searches ("gay tentacle anime") you made at home?
Other goodies from the page source: function loadDeferredImages(). I don't know what this is, but is a deferred image anything like a pop-under? It uses NoSetTimeOut-->NoNoSetTimeOut-->NoNoSetTimeOut-->
Now, maybe this is all benign, and it's just bad programming (apparently they're using JSPs) that inefficiently does work on the client using javascript. But I'd rather be skeptical now than find my search history being used to market to me.
Oh, the Proxomitron script to convert these links to straightforward links; note that it exempts Google and wikipedia.
Re:Tinfoil Hat Not Required (Score:5, Informative)
(Last Journal: Sunday April 16 2006, @10:03PM)
You make a very good point.
And note that the Amazon page carefully says that you can "hide" an entry -- not that you can delete it.
But please remember that Google already logs your IP address and search terms; so presumably thus means that now both Google and Amazon will be keeping tabs on you.
Re:Tinfoil Hat Not Required (Score:4, Funny)
(http://www.zx2c4.com/)
Re:Tinfoil Hat Not Required (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.bsdg.org/)
Of course if you disable the Amazon and A9 cookies then you loose the search inside and history "features", which is most of what A9 offers over Google.
Disabling the tracking is a nice feature. Wish you could do that with Google. Sure, google doesn't tell you what your history is, but they know.
Re:Tinfoil Hat Not Required (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do I need to have something to hide in order to want privacy? Can't I simply desire to prevent others from gathering unnecessary information on me?
People who searched for "warez" also read... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is like an infomerical from Amazon trying to pretend to be programming. I'll take my Google straight, and go to Amazon.com when I want to go shopping, thank you very much.
Re:People who searched for "warez" also read... (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.radixpub.com/vir/)
interesting actually searching for warez [a9.com] returns no results....they must be censoring the results when its in their best interest (they sell software).
Re:People who searched for "warez" also read... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://nonservium.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Wednesday March 07 2007, @04:15AM)
But oddly it works for "petz" and "catz"...
Pirating animals must be okay for them.
Re:People who searched for "warez" also read... (Score:5, Informative)
Nice bug... erm, I mean "feature".
Re:People who searched for "warez" also read... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd be interested in finding out what words amazon is censoring.
"Janet Jackson" works just fine.
Joseph Elwell.
Re:People who searched for "warez" also read... (Score:5, Informative)
Weird findings regarding IE (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.patik.com/ | Last Journal: Monday December 27 2004, @10:46AM)
So I searched for Windows [a9.com] and hovered over the site info for the Internet Explorer Home Page (the second result), and the bubble that pops up says:
So people are looking for IE but turn to Mozilla instead? Are people searching for "web browser" and clicking on Mozilla out of interest?Here are the top links for "web browser" [a9.com]: Mozilla, Firefox, Opera, Opera again, Safari, Lynx, Galeon, Netscape, Anybrowser.org, and evolt.org.
Not a single link to IE on the first page of results for "web browser"? Fishy.
Also note... (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.dragonswest.com/ | Last Journal: Monday November 05, @07:35PM)
Re:Also note... (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://erik.hollensbe.org/blog/)
Nice pun.
Re:Weird findings regarding IE (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://iambitter.org/)
No one tells anyone to go "get IE". Everyone who can have IE already HAS IE, for better or for worse. No need to link to it. As a result, the pagerank of most "Download IE" sites (uh, Windows Update???) would be remarkably low compared to the number of people who link to Mozilla et al.
Re:Weird findings regarding IE (Score:4, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Tuesday September 18, @11:59PM)
1) The people most likely to search for "web browser" or anything related to IE's homepage are most likely looking at alternatives. Most folks looking for IE know that the first thing to do is type "www.microsoft.com" and go from there.
2) Not very many people look for IE online in general
3) Microsoft doesn't market IE as a "web browser" online, it is a Windows component and as such would have far different content indexed than that of any of the listed browsers.
4) The search results you mention appear in almost the same order if you search for "web browser" on Google. Is that Fishy to you, too?
5) There ARE things about A9 that seem fishy
Re:Weird findings regarding IE (Score:4, Insightful)
"the internet" lists IE as the second hit, microsoft
Oh that's real nice... (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact, they go one step further - with Google's email you can always lie about your detals, but with Amazon's history feature you can't - it's tied to your Amazon account, credit card and all.
Of course, I Have Nothing To Hide, but I still think that comapnies shouldn't put themselves in a position where they have a load of juicy data that the police only need a warrant to get at.
It would have been smart for Amazon to keep this feature offline for a few weeks to get a better idea of how well google deals with the criticism.
actually looks really good (Score:3, Insightful)
Color scheme kind of turns me of tho'
A9 Search Plugin for Firefox (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://actsofvolition.com)
Re:A9 Search Plugin for Firefox (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.patik.com/ | Last Journal: Monday December 27 2004, @10:46AM)
CLICK BELOW (Score:5, Funny)
Search the text of some of Amazon's bookstore.. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you only need to see a paragraph to know what you need to know, you have no reason left to pay for the rest of the book.
However, most of the returns are from fiction books, so maybe you're better off just sticking with Google and saving this as a fallback only.
Re:a9? What 9? (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.byzantinecommunications.com/adamhoward | Last Journal: Wednesday May 25 2005, @02:26PM)
"A" plus 9 more characters.
But then you go an add a
Amazon has taken the best of Google... (Score:5, Funny)
So check this out - a9's Booty Filter. (Score:4, Interesting)
Try this:
Google: 'suicide girls' (you know you've been there)
Now a9 'suicide girls'
Hold the two results up next to one another. See?
Try this with other, ahem, keywords.
lazy name selection (Score:5, Funny)
a1.com? no, steak sauce.
a2.com? nope. taken.
a3.com? porn site.
a9.com? unregistered. dude, we've done it!
Re:lazy name selection (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.byzantinecommunications.com/adamhoward | Last Journal: Wednesday May 25 2005, @02:26PM)
Amazon.com is 10 characters long...or A plus 9 more.
A5.com (A + length(mazon) +
Reputation (Score:5, Interesting)
Google has proven over and over again that thier primary concern is for thier users. They have found ways to make money via ads that in no way interupt the user. New features are constantly being developed that will benefit users.
[side note: I am planning on signing up for gmail and using it as my primary webmail app. I do not consider it an invasion of privacy if I see an add for serial cables when someone sends me an email with a set of rs232 pinouts. I actually find it to be a unique situation where both google's users and customers can benefit]
Now, look at amazon. This is a company that has decieved users numerous times. Anyone remember the price mismatches between repeat customers and new customers? How honest is my search going to be if I look for '+"golf club" order online'? Something tells me I'll end up at a amazon.com page.
I understand that a similar situation could occour with froggle. The fact is it has not happened in either of them yet. However based on reputation, I would bet it would happen with google last.
URL Short cuts - cool! (Score:3, Insightful)
Porn (Score:5, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/)
In case of slashdotting... (Score:5, Funny)
Show me an A9 cache of Google's cache and we'll talk...
I'll stick with Google, thanks. (Score:3, Funny)
I bet they could build a pretty good profile on what interests you.
Now if they only had some type of online store that could sell you something, they could really clean up.
Nice touch (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.colingregorypalmer.net/)
-Colin [colingregorypalmer.net]
Re:Nice touch (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://graha.ms/ | Last Journal: Friday August 17, @06:22PM)
They should have just used the beta symbol on it's own or spell the english variant. It's like "IRC Chat" or "ATM Machine" or "LCD Display" or "CGPColinGregoryPalmernet"
Some people...
a9 has a big problem (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.snowjournal.com/)
So, they're supposed to be better than google? What about google's clean, simple, no BS web design approach? That's google's value!! Don't you get it Amazon?!?!? Well of course not! Take a direct look at Amazon.com and you'll get an idea of Amazon's design principles.
Will Amazon copy Google's biggest feature? (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.hiddenglade.com/threesecond/)
How unique and wonderful was it when Google released their search engine with no ads, a clean interface, and no loathsome sponsored links? Even when they introduced ads, they made sure they're clearly labeled as such, and made entirely of text.
In short, Google treated me as a person, and not a pair of sticky eyeballs. Meanwhile, Amazon has long been known to be well acquainted with the Not-Not-Evil path -- remember the patent on one-click shopping?
Even Google's missteps have been honest. They have a cookie on their site and probably log searches, and Gmail may have privacy problems, but still, Google is probably the least evil for-profit tech company I know of.
I'll admit that I'm watching Google pretty closely at the moment to see what happens with Gmail, but honestly, so long as they're up front with users about what they're doing and don't try to bury the permission clause in the TOS language, I'm fine with it. I even had an idea for a kind of art project, a voluntary, massive, transparent clipboard sharing project, that I've given serious thought to implementing that would probably be worse than what Google's doing, but I still think it'd be okay so long as the user knows it's a privacy concern ahead of time, and has his attention purposely drawn to it, preferably with big red letters. In fact, for me that'd just increase Gmail's cool factor, as I'm so boring that any federal investigators looking at my mail would only get a good laugh and 100k of spam for their trouble.
On Linux, Again (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://anuradha-ratnaweera.blogspot.com/)
Re:On Linux, Again (Score:4, Informative)
Privacy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Accuracy...Reliability (Score:3, Interesting)
And no I didn't google bomb it or anything.
Early thoughts (Score:3, Informative)
(Last Journal: Thursday September 20 2001, @04:56PM)
They also censor their results. Hardcore. As an indication, a9 give zero results for "hardcore" whereas google gives somewhere in the area of sixty million. While I'm sure that the bulk of them are porn, I'm not sure how much I trust a9's censors. Search engines already miss enough of the web - I don't want them purposefully hiding more of it.
And I can't stand "sponsored links" in line with real results. I know it's small, but I love how with google I can look at the left side of the screen for "real" results, and the right side of ads.
Earth to google: you've got nothing to worry about. But get in easyier address bar searching, and bring back than plan you mentioned a while ago to place fulltext copies of lots of books in your database, and you're golden.
What's in a name? (Score:3, Interesting)
It sounds like one of those sites you access by typing in the IP address, and those are usually shady, heh.
Apart from the lack of the features mentioned in the posts below, the visual interface is nothing to write about either.
Keep working on it, Amazon. It'll only make the folks at Google work harder, and make it better.
A Google Killer (Score:3, Insightful)
Somehow, I don't think that the Google killer will license Google's search.
Forget the bells and whistles- Does it Find Things (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.timewarp.org/ | Last Journal: Monday September 30 2002, @08:49AM)
It's still in beta, but so far it doesn't impress.
--
Evan
Umm... (Score:3, Informative)
Amazon is just power hungry like the rest of them. (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://879domains.com/)
Besides, Google's toolbar lets you save your recent searches anyway, that's nothing new, and it saves you the five seconds that it would take to type "google.com" or "a9.com/..." for you lazy people out there.
The only reason Amazon did this is because they want more people to shop at Amazon and use their search engine (obviously). It's been tried a thousand times before. Google won the preference of millions because the ads aren't obtrusive and they weren't in the business to try to get you to shop somewhere, or join a pay service, or any of that crap that Yahoo and MSN does.
I'd say Google wins. :)
First Search Reveals Lacking feature (Score:3, Interesting)
So my search for some well crawled site brought up first page of links from the same site.
And come on, the colour isn't exactly easy on the eyes.
Search Results (Score:3, Funny)
First result: Amazon [amazon.com]
Go to a9.com and search for 'books'.
First result: Barnes and Noble [barnesandnoble.com]
Be sure to read the terms of service (Score:3, Informative)
(Last Journal: Tuesday February 24 2004, @09:17PM)
This is ALEXA (Score:3, Informative)
(http://www.ctech.ca/)
Re:1 reason not to use a9.com (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.networkmirror.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday July 05, @04:34PM)
And that, ladies and gentlemen is the executive summary for The Life Of A Slashdotter.
Re:Smells like consumer profiling engine... (Score:4, Informative)
(http://dalelane.co.uk/)
On generic.a9.com, we will not recognize your A9.com or Amazon.com cookie. Information we gather on generic.a9.com will not be used in our data analysis (other than to detect abuse) and will not be used to personalize the services we offer you.
surely they deserve bonus points for that....
(plus the colour scheme aint so bad on generic.a9.com - reason enough to prefer it to regular a9!