This week, we're informing you about the most innovative US search engines in 2003.

In the news: Yahoo and Google add new search features, a big German web portal drops Google, Overture introduces minimum spend and separates bidding for contextual listings. A big Chinese search engine plans to go public on NASDAQ and the quality of Google search results seems to decline further.

Table of contents:

• Facts of the week
• Search engine news of the week
• Articles of the week
• Recommended resources
• Previous articles

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Yahoo and Google add new search features

"Yahoo and Google are offering new search tricks for Web surfers, with the ongoing goal of becoming indispensable. Yahoo [...] started offering visitors the ability to search for flight information directly from the search box [...]

Google, in turn, embedded a technology shortcut for visitors to find information on domain names and their owners, helping people circumvent the WhoIs database of domain names. [...]

Google also started displaying shopping-related listings from Froogle.com, its e-commerce reference site, at the top of general search results when it associates a query term as commercial."

Editors note: It seems what Google has withdrawn the WhoIs feature because the used WhoIs sites were infringing on the policies of Netsol.

Yahoo tested RSS Aggregation

"A beta of the Yahoo RSS aggregator appeared -- and subsequently disappeared -- from the personalized 'My Yahoo' service [...]

Popularized by blogs (define), RSS, [...] is used to shuttle content to newsreaders and aggregators from popular sites. Enterprises are increasingly turning to RSS as a tool to help update events listings, project updates and corporate announcements in their Web environments, while exploring other uses."

VAT to rise on Google's paid placements

"UK webmasters using Google’s Adwords service to promote their websites will see a price increase from 22 January.

Instead of billing from the US, Google will start billing from its European headquarters in Dublin. Advertisers will have to pay VAT at the Irish rate of 19 per cent instead of the UK rate of 17.5 per cent.

VAT-registered businesses will be able to reclaim the VAT, but others will have to swallow the increase."

German portal Web.de switches from Google to Inktomi

Web.de, one of Germany's biggest web portals, announced that it will no longer use Google results for its web searches. Instead, Web.de will use Inktomi results. According to the article, the declining quality of Google's results might have been the reason for Web.de's move.

Google often directs some web surfers to web dialer pages

German computer magazine PC Welt found out that the top results for "recipes" or "homework help" on the German version of Google often direct to web dialer pages. Web dialers are programs that establish and maintain your connection to the Internet, often at very high costs.

Upset at Overture minimum spend move

"Overture UK has upset some of its small pay-per-click customers by implementing a minimum monthly spend on its network of £20.

The new minimum spend will be effective from 1 February, although Overture said it will be implemented on new accounts before affecting existing customers."

Overture will separate bidding for contextual listings

"Yahoo's Overture Services later this month plans to let advertisers bid for contextual listings separately from search listings.

With the change, Overture answers a major advertiser complaint: contextual listings perform poorer than search listings."

Open Directory Project with thumbnail pictures

ThumbShots.org offers a version of the Open Directory Project with 'thumbshots' - thumbnail sized screenshots - next to each site. This allows you to see what the site looks like before you click on it.

Search sands shift as Yahoo! prepares to drop Google

"Yahoo!'s expected algorithmic search switch from Google to Inktomi will come in the next few months, according to search engine marketing execs who have spoken with Yahoo! employees. The change, while widely expected, will likely create huge disruptions in Web traffic patterns."

Baidu, a Chinese Google, eyes NASDAQ IPO

"A multi-millionaire at 36 and one-half of the brains behind the roaring success of China's self-styled Google, Robin Li now hopes his website will join a handful of Chinese dot-coms listed on the NASDAQ. [...]

China's Internet population is growing at a very rapid rate and at some point sooner or later it's going to become the largest Internet population in the world."

SCO approached Google about Linux license

"SCO Group Inc., the software company that is suing IBM and extracting royalties from other Linux users, said Friday that it had held 'low-level talks' with Internet search engine Google about a license agreement."

Do web search engines suppress controversy?

"This paper explores search engines' bias by asking: Is a specific well known controversy revealed in a simple search? [...] The experiments suggest simple queries tend to overly present the 'sunny side' of these topics, with minimal controversy."

Many search engines recently updated their ranking algorithms (the way they rank web sites in their results). The biggest change has recently been made by Google.

As a result, many search engine optimization products are outdated and they don't deliver accurate results that help you to optimize your web pages for the latest changes.

If you use IBP to optimize your web pages for high search engine rankings, you can always be sure that you optimize your web site according to the latest search engine ranking algorithms.

The information you get from IBP is always up-to-date, specific and accurate. IBP's advice is based on the in-depth analysis of the current, up-to-the-minute top 10 results of the selected search engine for that search term and it is specifically for that search term and specifically for the selected search engine.

For this reason, IBP's high quality analysis results are always up to date, specific and accurate. You won't get that level of search engine optimization accuracy with any other tool.

If you haven't done it yet, download your copy of IBP now and see for yourself.

• Who works with whom in the US search engines market (update)
• Lycos Europe, Overture expand new deal
• Google launches book search service
• The importance of links on your web site
• How to re-submit your web site to Internet directories
• Why your web site might not get listed in Internet directories
• View all past issues...