April 24, 2008
Searchme.
I typically roll my eyes at Web 2.0 stuff, but this is actually kinda groovy.
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I'm pretty 2.0 jaded but that is something neat. Who are these guys? Hopefully not some Google skunkworks project, it'd be nice to see a new entrant in the search engine biz.
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Definitely not Google... they're using a different search criteria. I know because my blog is the #11 result for "wendell" there (also #17 on Yahoo, #9 on Ask and #51 on MSN) but I paged through over a hundred "wendells" in SearchMe without finding any trace of ... ME!
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Rather cool!
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pretty cool...
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Good grief, I wonder what criteria they're using? My site is usually #11-15 in Google results for the search "knitting blog." (A very competitive category - non-knitters, just take my word for it.) I wasn't even able to find my site in SearchMe. Sour grapes, you might suspect. But check this out, the first batch* of results includes:
- Three posts to the Oregonian's knitting blog This is the only blog to be represented more than once. (No single blog should have more than one entry in a search result - so why this one? Did they have a larger ad spend?)
- A "my blog has moved" page from Wendy's old URL. (This page must be at least 5 years old. It's definitely an antique. It contains no content. Why is it even showing up, much less in the top 10 results?)
- A defunct knitting blog, which has been dead for many years.
- An incredibly lame Squidoo Lens with a grand total of five (count 'em!) links.
- About 20 knitting blogs that I've never heard of, and I do this for a living.
Conspicuously absent: all of the most popular knitting blogs (save Wendy Knits). Any search engine that doesn't return Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's blog anywhere in the first 30 results for "knitting blog" is obviously grossly mis-coded. There's a reason that Google's on top. They do search really well. I'm sure "knitting blogs" isn't a search term most people here are familiar with. Try something from your own area of expertise and see what happens. SearchMe is pretty, but completely useless. * "First batch" being defined as "As far as I was able to click before I got bored." Say 30-40. -
pretty!
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If you're wondering who's responsible for SearchMe - well, their site won't tell you. Evidently it's a secret? However, the WHOIS record lists a physical address in Palo Alto. The same physical address being used by Randy Adams, who recently received financing from Sequoia for a super-secret stealth project. Said stealth project evidently involves a very poorly-behaved web crawler.
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Thanks for the sleuthing, mecha! I wonder if Mr. Adams will have the financial fortitude to withstand Apple's lawyers...