Search Engine Watch Forums

Doldoly · #1 08-01-2005

There is an interesting quote from Yahoo News wire about a new artificial intelligence search engine in public beta called Previewseek.com which appears quite intriguing, and especially on the

... measures the company took to ensure total secrecy of the project -- even from its own programmers and developers ... with even most of the site's 26 core programmers, designers, and engineers kept completely in the dark about the overall vision of the project."

David Wallace · #2 08-01-2005

Thats the territory that comes with being "king of the hill". Everyone else wants to knock you off your perch.

randfish · #3 08-01-2005

Thanks for the pointer - PreviewSeek has some very exciting stuff!

dannysullivan · #4 08-02-2005

Fair to say, a glowing review out of Previewseek's own press release doesn't make a believer out of me. In fact, it's so over the top that it pretty much turns me off.

But let's look at this Google killer. It has thumbnails, as other search engines have had, and that hasn't killed Google. Heck, even Google has tested thumbnails. If it wants them, it will add them.

It has clustering, that Vivisimo has long had, that Vivisimo-owned Clusty has and that Dogpile with Vivisimio clustering has. Heck, even Google can cluster, if it wants to. Clustering isn't a category killer.

That clustering, of course, is working on meta results that come from the thing it supposedly will kill, Google among others. But darn those pesky major search engines. Despite meta search being so powerful, meta search still hasn't killed them yet -- nea, not made a dent.

As for being the first search engine to understand the meaning of words -- hardly. They've come and gone. Hey, Excite used to know the difference between apple the fruit and apple the computers.

The refinement shown with the search for Java is impressive and nice to see it kick in on things like jaguar and saturn. MSN used to do something like this, far less ambitious and with human editors, and I was sorry to see it go. I'd love to see the majors pick up a feature like this.

Perhaps they'll do it as Previewseek has, which is to simply pull from Wikipedia's disambiguation pages for a term. Here's Java at Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java, which is the same as what you see at the top of Previewseek. So when the release says this:

Quote:

Previewseek is the first search engine that 'understands' the meaning of words, and which can help users distinguish between java the island, java the programming language, or java the coffee.

Seem like it would more correctly be written:

Quote:

Previewseek taps into the multiple meanings a word may have as compiled by the volunteer workers at Wikipedia, who assemble this through the amazing technology of the human brain.

I'm moving this over to our beta test section and renaming the thread "New Previewseek Meta Search Engine," which is more appropriate. Those who try it can then add comments on whether they find it that quantium leap the release promises or not.

Mikkel deMib Svendsen · #5 08-02-2005

It's funny how this reminds me of my previous work at a major local engines years ago. About once a week I got an email from some person or company that have just "invented the search technology that will kill all others" ... well, guess what: Not one single of them ever turned out to be worth my time

I am not saying noone could make a better search engine than what we have now but many of the people that THINK they can haven't thought much about scalability issues and other issues of operating a real search engine.

Also, like Danny, I am very tired of companies that claim they invented something, or are "the first to ..." do whatever when the fact is it's been done before. Please be honest with us.

Quote:

Previewseek is the first search engine that 'understands' the meaning of words, and which can help users distinguish between java the island, java the programming language, or java the coffee.

Danny, you are so political

I would not rewrite that statement but just conclude the fact that it is NOT true. Did they lie or are they just not very cleaver? I don't know. What can you expect from a new engine that don't even know what is an original invention and what is not. Sorry, but such incorrect statements is a strong turn-off for me. It just dosn't make me want to learn more about that engine. Was that the purpose of the press release?

AussieWebmaster · #6 08-02-2005

I do not see any major new elements here. Even though my sites are better ranked here than at other places - but from what I know of my sites it is heavily influenced by the anchor text and the on page elements of Title and actual words on the page.

mtweed · #7 08-02-2005

I don't see anything new. In fact, I couldn't even get any video results.

AussieWebmaster · #8 08-02-2005

Very limited results.... I mean 69 results returned for one search that has 5 mill at Yahoo and Google....

Scott Fish · #9 08-02-2005

I agree with the above post, its very limited, My search for "Satellite Radio" only turned up 52 results, when Google has close to 25 million.

But I cant complain, my site is #1 on this new SE!

Doldoly · #10 08-03-2005

I've played around with this search engine over the past day, and here is my review.

Pros:

1. I liked having many sources of information presented all at once without having to go to different web sites.

2. I didn't seem to get many Google-bombed or spamdexed pages, which has started to get very annoying over the past few months. Having the green box at top is quite useful since this seems to be almost always noncommercial content, instead of ads. (Off topic but curious: there seems to be no ads whatsoever on the site ... how does the site make money?)

3. The save search folder function was quite a good tool to keep track of searches. I think Yahoo has this in its personalized offering, but that requires a log-in.

Cons:

1. The order of the search results seemed to change even from one second to another. I am not sure why, but in other search engines, this seems does not seem to happen. It gets a little confusing when you do a search and the result you saw on top a few seconds before is not several positions lower. Although, I guess using the saved search folder can help in this respect.

2. No news search. This has become one of my favorite features on Google (along with Google Earth!)

3. Layout took some time to get used to. After a few hours playing around with it, I started to find it more natural, but at first I wasn't exactly sure what I was seeing. It would be better if there was a help or an FAQ page to explain what exactly all the different parts of the page and the icons represents. I was able to figure it out by myself, but it would be a nice gesture.

Overall quite a nice search engine, and nicely developed for a beta product. It's always good to have more competition in this space, and the search engine is certainly worth a bookmark.

AussieWebmaster · #11 08-03-2005

The more you look the worst it gets... they have 9 results from one site for the same term.

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