Microsoft in June finally managed to take back a small amount of market share from Google in the US search business, according to comScore.

Its share of search queries had declined steadily over the previous 12 months, dropping two percentage points or so to a low of 8.5 per cent in May. So an increase back to 9.2 per cent has at least stopped the rot - for now.

Could this be a sign that the new Live Search Cashback service is having an effect?

Of course, for Steve Ballmer it still looks like a case of far too little, and far too late. The odds must be on him pitching another new offer for Yahoo’s search business (or even the whole company) before that company’s shareholder meeting on August 1st.

for more accurate data related details, do have look at

http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=2337

Microsoft emphasized the good news in its Q2 earnings call, reporting an 18% increase in revenue to $15.84 billion on strong sales related to the Xbox division. Revenue from online services -MSN, Live Search, email and IM - grew by 23% over last year. But the company was forced to alter its guidance for Q3 due to weak market conditions. (Cynopsis 7/18)

Segundo a comScore, a Microsoft possúi 6,3% do mercado de mecanismos de busca, contra 71,2% do google (dados de abril/2008). Apesar da força do google, a concorrência está de olho em estratégias inovadoras para atingir um patamar maior com um público-alvo cada dia mais significativo.

A estratégia não é muito comum mas o objetivo é bem interessante: ampliar o interesse do público pelo Live Search.

O funcionamento do programa CashBack da Microsoft trabalha como uma espécie de custo-por-aquisição: quem anuncia especifica quanto está disposto a pagar para conquistar um comprador de um produto e após a efetivação da compra repassa para a Microsoft essa comissão, mas a empresa, ao invés de ficar com o dinheiro transfere esse valor em forma de desconto para os clientes que utilizaram o mecanismo de busca Live Search.

A proposta é ampliar a participação do Live Search no mercado de buscas. O propósito é atingir entre 15% e 20% do market share para que a estratégia seja considerada um sucesso.

E você na sua empresa? Teve alguma idéia para a internet? O mercado está aberto e novas idéias podem render milhões!!!

Read the NYT article here:

"Great Photo On Flickr? Getty Might Pay You For It"

Which I think should read: Getty might just make you pay for it -- because really, they're trying to monetize the photography that we the people can now get at pretty affordable rates compared to the exorbitant amounts Getty charges -- which, I know, I know, is so they can pay their photographers and so their photographers can pay their bills.

But still... I'm not sure what this means -- could someone go onto my blog and offer me a book deal? yes. So why not Getty being allowed the freedom to trawl photographers' work to offer them a paying gig for what they do for fun. More power to ya! I'm just being selfish here, wanting the access to images for free 24/7.

If the photos are owned by Getty, at least we'll be able to find them with a little more ease. sheesh! Have you tried the Flickr "Search" tool. It sucks. Oh yeah, that's right. Flickr is owned by Yahoo. hmmm. Maybe the Yahoo-Microsoft deal would've helped out Flickr search with some of Live Search's technology. Maybe whomever runs the categorization tools or the backend site functionality at Flickr would get some fire under their ass and improve this!!!

But, alas, expectations get me into trouble every time.

El programa realiza con las palabras "literatura poesía poetas" una búsqueda en Google News, Google Search, Google Blog Search, Microsoft Live Search, Technorati, Yahoo News, Yahoo Search, Del.icio.us y Flickr.

La dirección:
http://pipes.yahoo.com/victor_azuaje/noticias_poeticas

Para agregarlo a cualquier lector de feeds (Google Reader, etc.), pueden copiar la dirección:

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.run?_id=c8eafe3702d86163b7947b31c81c782c&_render=rss

Pues ahora lo podemos averiguar gracias a Rank Checker, una herramienta desarrollado por SeoBook que se añade como un plugin de Firefox. Gracias a ella podremos ver cómo nos valoran Google, Yahoo! y Windows Live Search.

Em sistemas de busca semântica, o motor de busca não procura apenas por termos identicos em paginas, mas é capax de entrar em textos como os da wikipedia a procura de resultados e se basear em buscas anteriores.

Com esta compra a Microsoft espera melhorar seu Live Search para fazer frente ao Google e ao Yahoo. A compra desta empresa de buscas não acaba com o sonho de compra do Yahoo pelo pessoal de Redmond, a novle provavelmente ainda terá mais capitulos.

Image by Esthr via Flickr

As a shareholder of Powerset and a friend of Barney Pell, I am obviously delighted with the result. It is kudos to Barney that as a first-time CEO he has been able to build and secure an exit for this business in less than three years.

It's clear that Powerset has developed some impressive linguistic and semantic analysis technology. They also innovated in the search experience in a way that made it better (not just more complicated). It is also clear that the scale of Microsoft will allow Powerset to build out services more quickly. It may be a while before the whole of the Web is indexed by the technology but I am betting that the top sites (not just Wikipedia) and top blogs/social media will be next.

I have a new best friend in the world of searches conducted on my mobile device: Microsoft's Live Search.  Sure, I used Google Maps for a while, but I've learned that when it comes to performance and features, my hat is off to Microsoft.  Live Search lets me do several things: search by categories, search and view maps (road, which is a standard map, and aerial, which is a satellite view), get driving directions, get traffic updates, search for movies (by theater and by movie) and last, but certainly not least in today's economy, search for the best gas prices.

I first found Live Search when I was vacationing in Florida with my family.  I was in an area of the state that I had never before been to, and I wanted a way to find my way around the town without the need to unpack the laptop that I brought along just in case.  

I downloaded the Live Search application, and within two minutes I had found a listing of movie theaters and on top of that, I could view the list of movies playing there AND get directions to the theater from my location.  This was ideal for me because it was raining horribly that day and I needed something to do with the kids since the beach was out of the question.  To make things even better, I was able to use the "Search near here" function and find a few restaurants close to the theater.

Navigating the application couldn't be any easier.  It's simply a matter of telling the application where you are by either entering (or speaking) your city, choosing the city from a list or from contacts, or by choosing it on a map.  That's the hardest part.  After that, you simply enter, or speak, the location you wish to find.  And let me answer the question now: yes, the "Speak" function works very well.  I have not had it fail to return an accurate result yet.

But what if I want some one else to meet me at my chosen destination?  No problem.  Live Search allows me to "SMS to a Friend" the data that I have on my display.

The bottom line here is simply this: if you have a mobile device (mine happens to be a Motorola Q) and need a killer application to search maps, get directions and more, then you owe it to yourself to go and download your free copy of Microsoft's Live Search.

Yesterday, Internet regulator Icann circled it's wagons, for a vote on the future of domain names, which will have great significance for all of us.

They decided to loosen the strict rules on .coms and .orgs, and over the coming months we're likely to see sites cropping up with all sorts of weird and wonderful upper level domains.

This decision has mixed consequences for those with a presence online. On the one hand, individuals and companies will have a broader means of distinguishing themselves from competitors and alternatives.

But they may end up expending much energy (time and money) in buying out every conceivable domain alternative to protect the uniqueness of their brand from competitors, hoaxers and protest groups.

But what does this decision mean for most of us using the Internet in our work and leisure – how will the search environment be affected?

Jeff Jarvis, writing in the Guardian today, suggests Google will be the main beneficiaries, taking advantage of our laziness/ignorance when it comes to web search.

But while its true there are still a lot of people out there who don't or won't type full urls into their browser address bar, any benefit to Google will have to be met with a major overhaul of how their simple search works.

Google is struggling enough with the proliferation of information being added to hyperspace every day – hence the explosion in alternatives to simple search.

Google doesn't understand what words mean, and if it can't even understand what a domain means, then its going to get even more confused, and no doubt bring back some very confusing results.

That's not to say that Google as a company can't or won't adapt – of course they will, that's why they're so successful.

But if you can't refine a search by domain type, and distinguish between having information returned from commercial, public-sector and NGO-type sources, then how on earth can you expect a simple search to determine the what, where, why, when and who of what you're after?

In other words, the real losers in search terms will be those of us who uses the domain function (site: ) in Advanced search, which is essential toward more accurately finding contributors, statistics, background and analysis and all sorts of other things. Somethings going to have to fill the organisational void.

Step forward the real winners of this decision – those public directory-type sources like DMOZ and the Yahoo directory, who allow the searcher a browsing alternative to search. We are now officially heading away from simple search, and towards alternatives.

Other winners will include those semantic search engines out there who can impose meaning and order not only upon web content, but also upon all those new domain types we are likely to witness in future - like hakia and Powerset (which it is rumoured today, may be the subject of acquisition from MSN).

Speaking of MSN, I thought I'd append onto this piece something really disappointing I discovered yesterday.

During a routine trawl for search engines and methods, I found this page outlining some of the tricks available via MSN Search builder – MSN's own unique take on Advanced search.

I'm not a big user of MSN, so was worried to hear I may have been overlooking a useful means of search.

But on closer inspection I discovered this information is a few years out of date – and it seems that some of the more interesting methods available, including the three Results Ranking options (which allow you to rank results by up-to-dateness, popularity, and how approximate you'd like your search to be found) have since disappeared, along with Search Builder itself.

Today there is no longer even a link to Advanced search on MSN's UK page (though there is on Live search). Instead, under the search bar you will find examples of Popular searches – all fine and good for some research needs, but a serious letdown for those of us who want more from search engines.

Add to this the fact that Yahoo Mindset, which used to allow the weighting of results either toward research or shopping, has also now been down for a good few months now, and it looks like we're going through a bit of a recession in advanced search.

You'd think given yesterdays decision, that the major Internet players would be beavering away working on all sorts of ways to improve recall, and provide searchers with a range of ways to refine and hone their searches...

Rumors about Microsoft's interest in Powerset had been swirling around the Valley since last month, when Dan Farber first brought up the possibility in a post on CNet.

Powerset launched The consumer-facing side of Powerset currently only searches Wikipedia articles, but Microsoft is most likely more interested in using the underlying technology for its own search products like Live Search. Powerset's specialty iproviding answers through natural language queries like "When was Henry VIII born?" Powerset licensed this technology from Xerox PARC.

However, Valleyway broke the news that Microsoft already bought Powerset search for 90 percent off Yahoo search list price.

I wrote about Powerset a few times here and at Webmetricsguru.com - a lot was made of the technology as late as a month ago - but I haven't really used it much - I guess now the Yahoo aquisition is "off" Microsoft needed to buy something to keep itself current.

They could do a lot worse than what they bought.

1) After years toiling in the uber-geek trenches, semantics just got uber-interesting. As I wrote late last week, the days of GoogleKiller.com - an ultimate destination search site to rule them all - are behind us. The next wave of semantics lies in plugging into already existing sites and products that desperately need a smarter framework behind them.

It’s now time to focus on the niggling details: how to identify and amass relevant information, present it to users in an easily consumable yet rich visual format, and, perhaps most importantly, establish a user base that will consistently turn to your product as a valued information resource.

Powerset just landed (speculatively of course) the largest user base in the world. Which brings me to point number two.

2) That massive user base won't amount to much if users are faced with a complex, hard-to-parse interface. Though some disagreed, I viewed Powerset's Wikipedia search as a changing of the game in search.

Once you’ve dug into the meat of a Wikipedia article with just a couple of clicks, zeroing in on precise actions and entities and going directly to their citations in the article, paging through flat hyperlinks just ain’t going to cut it.

Many viewed the Wikipedia search product as a disappointing launch from Powerset, after so many months of hype. They were focused on the wrong angle though, fixating on the language used to search rather than the results produced. (And I do blame Powerset for some of this, as previous messaging from the company fixated on search phrasing.) Asking Wikipedia where you should go for dinner tonight is barking up the wrong tree, no matter what engine you use. But what if you applied those same Powerset algorithms to your email? Or to Live Search listings? Or to the documents on your hard drive? Microsoft - or any other company wanting to throw its hat in at this point - sees the potential in Powerset's algorithms, yes. But more importantly, that intuitive little UI the company threw on top of Wikipedia opens up a wide realm of consumer possibilities.

3) The talk of whether this is an over-valued deal is valid but, in one sense, it would be more than a deal between two companies. It would be an acknowledgement by the business sector at large that semantics' time has come. That it's time to take it out of the university labs and hands of the rocket scientists and put it in front of consumers for true vetting. Is semantics ready for that stage? I think it is. Will it look and sound the same after going through the billion-dollar-behemoth ringer? Probably not. But that's the most exciting part of all.

Google: go to the Google Add URL page, enter you web address and the "squiggly letter" shown in box then click on Add URL. Google will usually find your website in less than 7 days, sometimes sooner at that time with the help of a Sitemap it will start to index your web site pages.

LIVE Search: go to the Submit URL page, enter the characters from the picture displayed and type your homepage URL, then click on Submit URL

Yahoo: go to the Submit Your Site page on Yahoo Site Explorer, enter the webpage address and click on Submit URL

Basically thats it, pretty simple. Most of the organic search results that you will be getting to your site will be coming from the 3 major search engines. There are other search engines that you can submit to, we will cover that in the next post.

Il simpatico motore di ricerca Ms. Dewey è un'interfaccia sperimentale in flash, creata dalla Microsoft per  pruomuovere Live Search.

Si basa sul database di MS e non fornisce ottimi risultati, ma la ricerca viene rivolta alla signorina Dewey che interagisce con il visitatore in maniera divertente (esistono circa 600 possibili azioni diverse di Ms. Dewey), mentre sulla destra dello schermo appaiono i risultati dell'interrogazione.

Ms. Dewey rappresenta una campagna cosiddetta di "viral marketing" lanciata dalla Microsoft alla fine del 2006, ovvero la promozione e diffusione nella rete dei riferimenti a un certo prodotto sfruttando un social network esistente. In questo modo si stimolano gli individui a conoscere il proprio messaggio pubblicitario volontariamente, andandoselo a cercare.

Sul sito della Microsoft viene comunque specificato: “This is not an advertising campaign. This really just an experiment for exploring different ways to introduce people to search and Live Search specifically. We are not promoting the site but simply putting it out on the Web for discovery.” (Microsoft.com)

Vi piacerà!

En Redmond parecen un poco desesperados e intentan incrementar la participación de live search en el mercado de búsquedas a como dé lugar, ejemplo de ello es el nuevo programa cashback, el sistema de fidelización de usuarios consiste básicamente en que te pagan un reembolso por cada producto que compres usando live search como motor de búsqueda.

El programa ha estado en funcionamiento alrededor de 1 mes en USA, y al parecer está dando resultado a tal punto que Microsoft ya quiere empezar a implementarlo en Europa.

El mecanismo de funcionamiento consiste en que cada vez que compremos un producto utilizando Live Search Products se nos reembolse una cifra de desde un 2% y hasta un 30% del valor del artículo (siempre y cuando la tienda donde hacemos la compra este asociada al programa de beneficios). Una vez que hemos juntado una cantidad considerable de dinero podemos retirarlo en PayPal, utilizarlo como descuento en eBay, o en las mismas tiendas asociadas. La idea es que cuando nos vayamos de "compras virtuales" optemos por el buscador de productos de Microsoft en vez de ir directamente a las tiendas que ya conocemos.

Evidentemente el líder en búsquedas sigue siendo Google, que ha conseguido la fidelización de sus usuarios por la alta relevancia y sencillez de sus resultados, al parecer Microsoft intenta llegar de otras maneras y en vez de competir mejorando la calidad de sus resultados, prefiere comprar usuarios ofreciendo beneficios contantes y sonantes.

Please note, in most cases prizes will be delivered 6-8 weeks from the date your order is processed, unless your prize is in limited quantities or backordered

6 weeks?? wow! I guess the shipping department needs some serious looking into.. or someone has taken the Scotty Principle to heart. Ah well.

Link to Webcast

And a nice wordle.net tag cloud of the notes

Hope if helps

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http://www.fastcompany.tv/video/microsoft-search-will-it-use-mahalo-techniques-compete-with-google
Brad goldberg (GM of MSFT Search Business - Aka Windows Live Search)
.................○ 6/16/2008, 5:37 AM
.................○ Big announcement on cash back last week
.................○ Query stats
..................................§ 40% queries unanswered
..................................§ 50% refined
.................○ Targeted pages for key words
.................○ Content … that is what they do well
.................○ MSFT has ability - software, software @ scale, long term investment (ie servers)
.................○ 6/16/2008, 5:40 AM
.................○ Status
..................................§ 1st Goal … get relevant
..................................§ Quality of search - Believe it same across yahoo, google, msft
..................................§ Key goal how to get relevance high % on 1st page
..................................§ Up till now focused on basics of relevance
..................................§ Now cash base
...................................................□ 4 tasks in search
....................................................................® Entertain, buy, reference, navigation
...................................................□ Commercial focus … task basis
...................................................□ Niche focus
.................○ 6/16/2008, 5:43 AM
.................○ Other fundamentals - Speed, design, etc
..................................§ In the US, On par w/ relevance … in US … not outside of US
..................................§ UX - Biggest change in next 5 years (no change in last 5 years in industry)
...................................................□ Blended search
...................................................□ Universal search
...................................................□ Their advantage … not driven by AD $ … so they can take more risks
....................................................................® Bauer Comment - Google does limited A/B testing … not sure if that is accurate
.................○ 6/16/2008, 5:46 AM
.................○ Mobile, Local
..................................§ Two goals
...................................................□ PC Search
...................................................□ Mobile Search
..................................§ Bauer Comment - I am not sure if in the 5 year view this is a wise play
..................................§ Gas finder / prices
..................................§ Tell me - voice based search
..................................§ Two main mobile use cases
...................................................□ Mapping
...................................................□ Business information
.................○ 6/16/2008, 5:47 AM
.................○ How change the game? w/ Google.
..................................§ A few things
...................................................□ Great relevance
...................................................□ Commerce (i.e. cash back … reward for search behavior)
....................................................................® Bauer Comment - better use of their 3B $ they offered Yahoo … buy the eyeballs … a lot of market share is comfort … have to break that
...................................................□ Advertisers
....................................................................® Cost per action (defined by merchant) focus is ADS
....................................................................® Afraid of monopoloy … no choice (just google) … europe examples
.................○ 6/16/2008, 5:51 AM
.................○ Brand
..................................§ Took his dad 2 years (scoble) to switch from alta vista to MSFT
..................................§ Split search query types
...................................................□ Users are not aware (via toolbar embedded in PC or site) of engine
....................................................................® So they need a better search engine
....................................................................® HP deal last week as an example
....................................................................® Last few years not out there
...................................................□ Users are aware of search engine
....................................................................® Users only aware of google
....................................................................® Really they use 4 major engines
....................................................................® How create awareness
.....................................................................................◊ Commercial search, cash back … provide reasons to try it on an ongoing business
.....................................................................................◊ Then drive awareness (homepage, OEM, marketing)
.....................................................................................◊ How much engagement (return usage)
..................................§ Bauer Comment - They need to run a lotto … ticket per search … gaming it would be a problem
.................○ 6/16/2008, 5:54 AM
.................○ People search
..................................§ How to integrate to search experience as social networks emerge and people want to find people
..................................§ Most of experience on people search is hard (per him)
...................................................□ Bauer Comment - Disagree … if you know 1-3 things about the person … you have a pretty good lock in on google
..................................§ Facebook … walled garden … does MSFT's 10% stake give them special access?
...................................................□ Bauer Comment there is a ok result on facebook profiles
.................○ 6/16/2008, 5:57 AM
.................○ Media search … hard to get results that are media
..................................§ Two pieces to that
...................................................□ Video search
....................................................................® Built a browser summary of a video … quickly navigate from a set of videos
....................................................................® How create traffic … search on videos link
.....................................................................................◊ Bauer Comment - Really they need one search … that dynamically adjusts
.....................................................................................◊ Scoble agrees w/ that point
....................................................................® At some point there will be break through on UX to get image search going
.....................................................................................◊ Bauer Comment - agree that image search on google works for me
....................................................................® Not that exciting if you don't change the UX based on content
...................................................□ Weather
....................................................................® Informational query (answer on 1st page)
....................................................................® Bauer Comment - Semantic search sounds probably here
.................○ 6/16/2008, 6:01 AM
.................○ Back to usability
...................................................□ All searches stop @ 1000 results (no matter how many hits they have
...................................................□ Over time … users will look on a task basis
.................○ 6/16/2008, 6:01 AM
.................○ Mahalo
..................................§ Whats experience been w/ that? (asking Scoble)
...................................................□ He answers Google, Yahoo, MSFT .. Not satisfying wants a portal
...................................................□ Better experience
...................................................□ Head oriented query
..................................§ Doesn't scale even w/ crowdsourcing
..................................§ 2 Styles
...................................................□ Portals - Human programmed experience
...................................................□ Search - Algorithmic result
...................................................□ Bauer Comment - Good point … he knows the focus of his tool … MSN is the portal
...................................................□ Bauer Comment - Google's style of search types might be the wisest … blog, image, news, etc … basically categorizing pages by style of author … you get a better sense of where to present that (or allow user to choose)
..................................§ Ideal model has mix of algorithmic + programmatic
.................○ 6/16/2008, 6:05 AM
.................○ Friendfeed push
..................................§ New data type … activity streams
..................................§ Friendfeed indexes real time
..................................§ Google, MSFT … indexes hourly … so cutting edge focus
..................................§ What was your experience w/ that (his ? To scoble)
...................................................□ Good. For real time.
..................................§ How much will users segment searches by search portal focus
...................................................□ Friend feed - current breaking news
...................................................□ Mahalo - Trips
...................................................□ MSFT -
...................................................□ Google
...................................................□ Paid views for search … increasing focus on navigation … not discovery … sites become primary way to find other sites
.................○ 6/16/2008, 6:08 AM
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Of course having a key differentiating point is vital for success in any industry, however Microsoft is not positioning themselves to take users away from Google or even Yahoo! Since the launch of the "pay to search engine" I still have no reason to go to Live.com when I'm looking for any web related item.  As much as we love to hate Google, they are still head and shoulders above everyone else in the industry when it comes to finding what I'm looking for online.  And as far as I can see there are only two ways that either Yahoo! or Microsoft will be able to gain market share in the search engine wars.

1. Wiki search
There is only one thing users love more than ease of use and speed, and that is control.  If Yahoo! or Microsoft could effectively enable users to control search criteria, they would finally have a service that would have enough of a differentiating factor to gain market share.  Early adopters would being the migration toward this type of platform just as they did with Wikipedia, Twitter, et al.  The process would not be quick, however in my opinion there would come a time where either of these two companies would be able to be a true #2 in the search market.  This is, of course, assuming that Google would not be able to develop and come to market with this same type of product offering.

2. Semantic Search
This second option would be easier to execute upon, however it may now create enough differentiation to be considered a an enhanced alternate solution.  For those of you not familiar with the Semantic Web, here is a quote from Wikipedia:

The Semantic Web is an evolving extension of the World Wide Web in which the semantics of information and services on the web is defined, making it possible for the web to understand and satisfy the requests of people and machines to use the web content.^[1][2] It derives from W3CTim Berners-Lee's vision of the Web as a universal medium for data, information, and knowledge exchange.^[3]

^{The continued stranglehold Google has on the search market is going to force whoever decides to compete to offer a very dynamic service.  If you want a prime example of the difference between the search engines, type in: Jordan Hudgens into Google, Yahoo! and Live.com.  The accuracy of the results are so drastic it is amazing that Yahoo! and Microsoft even consider themselves in the search industry.}

La clave es el fichero robots.txt

Los motores de búsqueda emplean unos programas automatizados (conocidos como Robots, Spiders o Crawlers) que esencialmente rastrean la web en busca de información y enlaces. Dichos programas actúan sobre cada web en base a las especificaciones del fichero robots.txt que ésta tenga definido, de tal manera que, dependiendo de las recomendaciones establecidas en dicho fichero, existen directorios, páginas o archivos que no deben ser rastreados por los Robots. Estas recomendaciones se establecen en robots.txt mediante la etiqueta disallow.

Si, por ejemplo, echásemos un vistazo al fichero robots.txt de un conocido blog español (que, todavía hoy, algún periodista/escritor se empeña en llamar Portal), encontraríamos que algunas de sus entradas han sido marcadas con la etiqueta disallow:

De esta manera, las entradas del blog, asociadas a las direcciones mostradas en el extracto del robots.txt, deberían permanecer ocultas a los buscadores.

Cómo encontrar el fichero robots.txt

Si se pretende fisgonear en una web concreta, cuyo dominio es www.ejemplo.com, caso de que el fichero robots.txt esté definido, éste ha de encontrarse en la dirección www.ejemplo.com/robots.txt por defecto.

Otra forma de encontrar contenidos ocultos a los motores de búsqueda es aquella que se basa en el empleo de los propios motores de búsqueda. En este caso se tratará de encontrar ficheros de texto robots.txt que contengan la etiqueta disallow. Si se emplea Google como motor de búsqueda, los pasos a seguir son:

• Introducir "robots.txt", "disallow:" y filetype:txt como criterios de búsqueda [URL de búsqueda resultante].
• Si, además, se desea introducir un filtro temporal, que reduzca los resultados al último mes, se añadirá la cadena &as_qdr=m a la URL de búsqueda [URL de búsqueda resultante].

Los resultados obtenidos mostrarán los ficheros robots.txt en que aparece la etiqueta disallow, esto es, ficheros con referencias a páginas y archivos ocultos para los buscadores.

Navegar por páginas ocultas a los buscadores

El primer resultado de la búsqueda que hemos realizado previamente (URL de búsqueda) corresponde al robots.txt de la web oficial de la Casa Blanca, cuya dirección es www.whitehouse.gov/robots.txt, como ya se comentó antes. En él se pueden observar los siguientes registros:

Para acceder, por ejemplo, a la página correspondiente al primer registro mostrado, bastará con cambiar /robots.txt por /911/patriotism/ (omitiendo text). Et voila!

Más información sobre robots.txt

Si te ha interesado el tema de los ficheros robots.txt, te recomiendo visitar Robots.txt: todo lo que debería saber, un completo tutorial al respecto publicado en Emezeta Blog que me ha permitido matizar algunos aspectos del post a posteriori.

Archivado en: How To

One of the noteworthy enticements for consumers to use Live Search is Microsoft's introduction of rebates to consumers who use Live Search to consummate purchases.  Many vendors are participating in the Microsoft program which rebates cash to consumers for purchases as opposed to Google's pay-per-click advertising model.  As of this morning there is little to report on the success or failure of this new initiative.

Another Microsoft effort to promote its Live Search is an agreement between Microsoft and HP to include the Live Search toolbar pre-installed as a default on HP PCs.  Additionally, HP and Microsoft have agreed to select Live Search as the default Internet Explorer search engine on new HP desktops.

Microsoft is also in a heated battle with Yahoo and Google in the unfolding mobile device war, considered the developing market for web search, ads, and other mobile services.  According to a Nielsen survey, Yahoo leads Google and MSN as the top wireless Internet web provider in 2007.  It will be interesting to note how Microsoft fares with these three strategies.  Onsite is of the opinion that competition in any market is wonderful for consumers.  Search engine and mobile service competition among the three Internet giants should provide opportunities for entrepreneurial competition, innovation, and great consumer benefit.

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This New Orleans On-Site Computer Service post was provided by Eli Lucas. Eli can be reached at eli@onsitenola.com. Onsite Computer serves the Microsoft computing needs of small businesses throughout the Greater New Orleans area including Uptown, Lakeview, Broadmoor, Mid-City, Metairie, Jefferson, Kenner, Westbank, French Quarter, and the Warehouse District. Please visit our website for New Orleans Computer Service.

In fact w/ MS IE7 I can chooe a whole list:

Something that can't be done with Firefox, but I can choose to search Creative Commons (what is this?).

The comments are the greatest:

"This story is a joke and you should be [sic]embarassed for posting it."

"The coexistance of Google and Firefox runs deep enough that you can type a keyword into the browser and you will be directed to the #1 website that is in Google search results for that keyword 90% of the time. Type in a word or a phrase (laptop, cheap laptop, iphone, Danny Sullivan) hit Go and see where you end up.  In IE this is not possible"

Gotta love fanbois

So far, this appeared to be borne out by any of the areas I happened to visit using their services, and this was further boosted by the arrival of new areas covered bt these images, and of Bird's Eye views, in very high resolution, of many additional areas.

However...

I happened to be revising some page content on subjects located on the Kintyre peninsula, and was rather alarmed to find that views I had previously referred to for information were no longer available. These early pages had a number of hand coded views (these are now partially automated to avoid hand coding), so I know I wouldn't have written them if they hadn't led to high resolution views.

To say the least, this is a little disappointing, as it should be a relatively straightforward task for the software teams at these two heavyweights to pick the appropriate image provider, and not leave the visitor looking at the irritating message/graphic that signals there is no image available, when there used to be.

The images are still available elsewhere, so it's not as if they've been removed from circulation.

Hopefully, they'll be reinstated - or I've got a lot of pointless links to find and delete.

One of the biggest criticisms leveled against Live.com has been the simple fact that nobody seems to even know what it is! 6K weekly downloads! Maybe there is still hope..

~~~~~

On the topic of search add-ons, I find the top few in the list quite interesting. Of course, Google and Yahoo are missing from there because they come installed by default, but that's a separate issue..

2 out of the top 3, IMDB and M-W have a couple of things in common.. Both are extremely useful websites, chock full of information, and both of them are completely and positively unusable. I think M-W may have cleaned up a little recently, at least I don't see the gazillion popups anymore, but the ads..! And as for IMDB, gods forbid if you have to visit that website on the weekend of a big movie release! No wonder they make such great add-ons!

Microsoft secured a victory in its search engine battle with Google by striking a deal with HP to have the No. 1 PC company place a toolbar on its machines that links to the software giant's Live Search engine, the companies said Monday. In the agreement that takes effect in January, HP -- which will end its a similar deal with Yahoo! -- will also make Live Search the default engine for Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. (ClipSyndicate/New York Financial Press 6/2, The New York Times/Reuters 6/3, Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg 6/3)

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang ordered up a draft press release rejecting a Microsoft takeover bid several months before January's unsolicited bid, according to newly unsealed company documents. The new disclosures bring to light Yahoo's resistance to a merger with a software giant. (Iwantmedia 6/3, http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN0229819820080603 6/3)

Some juicy details were revealed when a judge unsealed a document in a Yahoo shareholder lawsuit filed after the company's board rebuffed Microsoft's advances. Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang appears to have thwarted the bid by instituting an expensive employee severance program on Feb. 12 that would have cost Microsoft anywhere from an extra $514 million to $2.4 billion. (Cynopsis 6/3)

As Techcrunch wrote last week, Facebook is turning parts of its application platform open source, the company announced today. It’s available here for download.  This comes a little more than a year after Facebook Platform first launched to allow third party developers a way to get their applications directly onto Facebook. The company says more than 24,000 applications have now been built on the platform and more than 400,000 developers are building these applications. 140 new applications are added to the directory each day. “Nearly all” Facebook users have added at least one of those applications. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/02/facebook-turns-platfrom-open-source-via-fbopen 6/2)

Today iLike co-founder Patrick Koppula unveils his latest project, ffwd which is trying to take channel surfing to the web. ffwd behaves like a video recommendation site that mixes StumbleUpon, Last.fm, and Pandora. The site will begin taking applications for their beta today, though it won’t begin until later this summer. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/03/ffwd-channel-surfing-comes-to-the-web-and-your-wii 6/3)

(Below) Let me break this down for you as this scares the hell out of me.  The standard package (snail-speed and low capacity) is $29.95 monthly at 768 kilobits per second with a cap of 5 GB of data.  If you’re simply an e-mail/web page kind of user, no worries.  You probably won’t ever reach capacity in a month.  If you download TV shows or movies, take note.  A typical standard definition movie is 1.5 GB whereas a high-definition movie is 6 - 8GB.  One HD movie surpasses the 5GB cap in one swoop.  To be fair, there is a more expensive option for $54.99 monthly which offers a 40GB cap.  Time Warner Cable should focus on providing faster broadband speeds rather than charging users additional fees for access.  If Time Warner Cable was afraid of services like iTunes or Netflix, perhaps they should work on improving the product (on demand and archaic menu interface) rather than attempting to outwit them with these hidden fees.  Disgusting business move in my opinion.

Time Warner Cable will soon become one of the first Internet service providers to charge extra for people whose online activity goes beyond a certain monthly limit. The trial will begin Thursday for new subscribers in Beaumont, Texas, who will have monthly allowances for uploads and downloads and will have to pay $1 per gigabyte if they exceed those limits. (The Washington Post/Associated Press 6/2)

In an effort to save on bandwidth costs Veoh Networks took steps to block international users in 33 countries from accessing its videos, reports NewTeeVee. Expect more belt-tightening at these highly funded, low-revenue generating video start-ups. (Cynopsis 6/3)

The Filter, the media recommendation engine that Techcrunch covered last April, has opened its doors to the public. The Peter Gabriel-backed company offers an entertainment start page that provides recommendations on movies, music, and online video (it is mostly focused on perfecting its music recommendations for the time being). (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/02/the-filter-launches-with-a-message-from-peter-gabriel 6/2)

Peter Gabriel Discusses The Filter

Buzznet, the social network whose CEO once said that he would like to build "the next Viacom," is launching a sister site: Celebuzz.com, a community for enthusiasts of celebrity news. Celebrity gossip fans are said to use "more than one source to get the same exact story." (Iwantmedia 6/3, http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-9957573-36.html 6/2)

At a press conference to kick off Internet Week New York, a festival promoting New York's digital industries, mayor Michael Bloomberg is unveiling NYC Seed, a venture firm for local tech start-ups. (Iwantmedia 6/3, http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-9957814-36.html 6/2)

The Internet will become the primary news source within five years, says a new report released at a meeting of the World Association of Newspapers. Newspapers are advised to explore mobile and Internet markets. They "cannot count on their print editions alone to keep them solvent." (Iwantmedia 6/3, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080603/ap_on_hi_te/sweden_newspaper_congress_digital 6/3)

Lloyd Braun, the former Yahoo entertainment czar turned Hollywood and online programmer, is said to be teaming up with Microsoft to develop a Web site aimed at aggregating celebrity and entertainment news. The still-unnamed site will rival AOL's TMZ.com, Perez Hilton and others. (Iwantmedia 6/3, http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080602/bermanbraun-will-make-both-msn-celeb-site-and-also-yahoo-lunacy-report 6/2)

myLifetime.com is rolling out a regiment of digital extras for Season 2 of Army Wives premiering on the network June 8. Fans can stream full episodes or a 9-minute season recap of season 1 for free, connect with fans through a variety of social networking tools and view in depth character pages. (Cynopsis 6/3)

A snooze for me but hey, I’m not the target demo.

Season 1 Recap

Google and Amazon.com will be long-term winners on the Internet, while Yahoo and IAC InterActiveCorp fall by the wayside and eBay becomes a merger target. So says Sanford Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay in a new 310-page report entitled "U.S. Internet: The End of the Beginning." (Iwantmedia 6/3, http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSN0232735820080603 6/3)