Google index doubles to 8 billion . . .are you ready?

[baddog]

If you go to www.google.com you will notice that today they have doubled their index from 4 billion to 8 billion! Are you prepared?

If not, and you want to make sure you are, I suggest you check out www.adultsem.com and take advantage of the free site evaluation.

Your competition just doubled overnight.

[hershie]

from NY Times:

November 11, 2004
Microsoft Unveils Its Internet Search Engine, Quietly
By JOHN MARKOFF

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 10 - Microsoft rolled out its long-planned response to Google and Yahoo in the Internet search industry on Wednesday, but with an uncharacteristically soft-sell approach.

The debut, taking the form of a test site, was a stark contrast to another high-profile introduction the company made nine years ago. That was when Microsoft's chairman, Bill Gates, all but declared war on Netscape Communications and its Web browser by announcing his company's own browser, Internet Explorer, and proclaiming, "We are hard core about the Internet.''

On Wednesday, as Microsoft prepared to switch on its search engine at midnight Eastern time (beta.search.msn.com), the company made none of its top executives available for comment.

The highest-ranking official who was willing to discuss the rollout was Adam Sohn, director of sales and marketing for the MSN Web portal. He said Microsoft's intention was not to compete with Google, currently the Internet's dominant search engine, but instead to "delight" its own customers.

He discounted the widely held notion that Microsoft, which fought a bitter federal antitrust battle as a result of its actions against Netscape, had similar aggressive designs on the market for Internet search.

"I see zero parallel here," he said. "It's a different landscape."

Soft talk notwithstanding, Microsoft is carrying a big stick as it takes on Google and the No. 2 search site, Yahoo.

Microsoft said its MSN search engine would index five billion Web pages, which would make it the most extensive search database, depending on who is counting - and when.

Until recently, Google had said that its database indexed four billion pages. But on Wednesday, Google executives said that they were updating that count, to eight billion pages.

Microsoft is also offering search features meant to leverage the company's other online assets. One, called Direct Actions, enables a user to type in the name of a musical artist, song or album and then be linked immediately to Microsoft's MSN Music store. MSN Music increasingly aims to compete with Apple Computer's popular iTunes music download service.

But Internet search experts and industry analysts said that Microsoft still had far to go to be viewed as a serious competitor to either Google or Yahoo.

"Over all, I'm pleased it's out there," said Danny Sullivan, editor of SearchEngineWatch.com, an industry news site. "But it's not going to be a Google killer" anytime soon, he said.

With Microsoft, of course, soon is not always the point. Despite its take-no-prisoners approach to Netscape, the company's time-honored tradition - whether with spreadsheet software, word-processing software or the Windows graphical interface - has been to introduce highly imitative products and features, then gradually improve upon them.

The company has typically bided its time, using its dominance of the desktop operating system to wage a war of attrition that eventually allows it to control other categories of the computing market.

It is too early to say whether that pattern will hold true in the search field.

"The real question is, Does this do anything to change the traffic patterns for search?" said James H. Friedland, a financial analyst at SG Cowen, an investment firm. "They haven't done anything to leverage their monopoly position on the desktop."

That could happen later this year, however. Microsoft said Wednesday that it would announce a new desktop search tool before the end of the year.

If that ability were linked to the company's Web search engine in future versions of the Windows operation system - something that Microsoft would not discuss but that analysts expect - the move could place new pressure on Google and Yahoo.

Many of the features that Microsoft has incorporated into its new test service have been tried previously in the industry, with varying results.

The company, for example, has given its search engine the ability to understand natural-language queries, so that a user can phrase questions like "What is the capital of Turkey?" and receive the most useful answer, which is Ankara. More bare-bones keyword search techniques might elicit a reference to the turkey that the White House plans to pardon at Thanksgiving, Mr. Sohn of Microsoft said.

While another search service, Ask Jeeves, has long tried to answer questions that are typed in colloquial English sentences, Google came to prominence by analyzing the structure of the Web, rather than human languages, to determine the relevance of information to a user's query. (For the record, both Ask Jeeves and Google can ably provide relevant answers to "What is the capital of Turkey?")

Microsoft is also playing me-too in the increasingly popular field of local search with a feature called Near Me, which provides results tailored to a Web surfer's geographic locale. Both Google and Yahoo currently offer extensive local search capabilities.

In the long term, the importance of search in controlling access to the Internet cannot be overstated, in the view of Brewster Kahle, the founder of the Internet Archive, a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco that maintains a complete copy of the contents of the World Wide Web.

Fully 20 percent of all Web traffic now goes to 10 Web sites, and that list is dominated by search engines, he said. "The level of mind space that provides is enormous,'' Mr. Kahle said. "If you want to control the world, it's essential that you be there."

But in another indication that Microsoft means to take a gradual approach to the search market, the company said on Wednesday that it was not severing an important business link to Yahoo, which currently provides the search service on MSN. To the surprise of some analysts, Microsoft plans to continue using Yahoo's Overture advertising-placement service.

Overture displays text ads on MSN search-result pages and shares the revenue with Microsoft. Mr. Sohn said that Microsoft had no current plans to create its own competing advertising network.

But while dismissing talk of an Internet search war, Mr. Sohn acknowledged that Microsoft hoped its new search abilities might entice Web surfers who do not have what he termed a "religious" commitment to Google.

"Search is in its infancy," he said. "There has been an explosion of new entrants."

[WiredGuy]

Nice timing how this is released just a day before MSN goes live. Great, 4 billion more competitiors. Back to work!

WG

[baddog]

Originally posted by WiredGuy
Nice timing how this is released just a day before MSN goes live. Great, 4 billion more competitiors. Back to work!

WG

You're welcome

[OzMan]

Unless I am missing something, since only the top 1000 are listed, isn't this for the most part like being inside a club with 1000 people filled to capacity and being told that there are now 8 million people outside waiting to get in instead of 4 million. Who cares...

We have to take Googles word for what lies beyond 1000 and it doesn't really matter.

Hmm rethinking this:

1) Where did these 4 million extra pages suddenly come from? Googlebot didn't get time to EVER crawl them but a new Googlebot on crack will now have time??

2) We only need to be worried if any of these make it into the 1000 displayed results right?

Me is confused ....

[baddog]

Yes, the Google-bot is now using steroids, so now you have to compete with 8 billion instead of 4 billion for those 1,000 spots

[baddog]

Originally posted by OzMan
1) Where did these 4 million extra pages suddenly come from?

it is Billion, with a "b"

[OzMan]

yes billion but where did they suddenly come from?

Did only half your pages get indexed up to now??



So I guess it WILL effectively double the competition then


Found this from a GoogleDude
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Google's index nearly doubles to 8 billion pages
You probably never notice the large number that appears in tiny type at the bottom of the Google home page, but I do. It's a measure of how many pages we have in our index and gives an indication of how broadly we search to find the information you're looking for. Today that number nearly doubled to more than 8 billion pages. That made me smile.

Comprehensiveness is not the only important factor in evaluating a search engine, but it's invaluable for queries that only return a few results. For example, now when I search for friends who previously generated only a handful of results, I see double that number. These are not just copies of the same pages, but truly diverse results that give more information. The same is true for obscure topics, where you're now significantly more likely to find relevant and diverse information about the subjects. You may also notice that the result counts for broader queries (with thousands or millions of results) have gone up substantially. However, as with any search engine, these are estimates, and the real benefit lies with the queries that generate fewer results.

The documents in Google's index are in dozens of file types from HTML to PDF, including PowerPoint, Flash, PostScript and JavaScript. Together these pages represent a good chunk of the world's information, but hardly all of it. That's why we keep building more advanced systems for crawling the web and creating more sophisticated indices to sort what we find. So 8 billion pages is a milestone worth noting, but it's not the end of the road. The real test is how well we do in finding what you want from within those pages. We'll keep improving that too.

Bill Coughran
V.P., Engineering, Google

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[KRL]

8 Billion pages.


Hmmmmmm how many are real sites.

[baddog]

Originally posted by KRL
8 Billion pages.


Hmmmmmm how many are real sites.

I just counted them, and only found 6 that weren't real

[Trax]

Finally its confirmed.
Datacenters have been showing that for a few days

[OzMan]

Originally posted by KRL
8 Billion pages.


Hmmmmmm how many are real sites.

Yup that's why my first reaction was that it won't automatically double the competition if they weren't good enough to get into the original "top 4 billion"

[KRL]

Originally posted by baddog
I just counted them, and only found 6 that weren't real

and 4 billion from Russian pagebots

[BoNgHiTtA]

Mark my words, Google won't be anything in 10 years.

[Odin88]

Originally posted by BoNgHiTtA
Mark my words, Google won't be anything in 10 years.

lol! I don't pretend to know everything about Google, but I think they have well and truly proven themselves to the world. If anything I'd say they will be twice the size of what they are now. They are moving into numerous huge markets, and they have the surfer loyalty, absolute skill, and genious to pull every one of them off. Hell, twice the size is an understatement really.

[BoNgHiTtA]

Originally posted by Odin88
lol! I don't pretend to know everything about Google, but I think they have well and truly proven themselves to the world. If anything I'd say they will be twice the size of what they are now. They are moving into numerous huge markets, and they have the surfer loyalty, absolute skill, and genious to pull every one of them off. Hell, twice the size is an understatement really.

Look at it now, searching for things on google is just like how it was back when doorway pages were the rage on altavista. Microsoft moving into the space. Its looking grim for them. Search engines change, and the super hyped ones like google never stay ontop.

Refer to 1996-2000 for documentation.

*plus morons like wiredguy can figure out google, who the fuck can't..

[WiredGuy]

Originally posted by BoNgHiTtA
*plus morons like wiredguy can figure out google, who the fuck can't..

Someone seems to be jealous.
WG

[BoNgHiTtA]

Originally posted by WiredGuy
Someone seems to be jealous.
WG

No im just sick of reading your empty self hyping statements. I too am pretty good at google, and I don't run around talking shit like ur ass.

Your tired, give it a rest.

[WiredGuy]

Originally posted by BoNgHiTtA
No im just sick of reading your empty self hyping statements. I too am pretty good at google, and I don't run around talking shit like ur ass.

Self-hyping statements? I think you're mistaking me for someone else as I don't try to make myself seem like hot shit. Unlike some people around this place, I don't run on an ego trip and for the most part I help those who ask for it. If you don't like it, add me to your ignore list.

WG

[QualityMpegs]

Originally posted by WiredGuy
Self-hyping statements? I think you're mistaking me for someone else as I don't try to make myself seem like hot shit. Unlike some people around this place, I don't run on an ego trip and for the most part I help those who ask for it. If you don't like it, add me to your ignore list.

WG

I agree...wiredguy does seem pretty fucking helpful...definetely doesn't seem like some self centered attention whore prick.

but who knows...i am drunk.

[dcortez]

Originally posted by KRL
8 Billion pages.


Hmmmmmm how many are real sites.

I know for every one of my sites there are 25 to 50+ page jacked (copy cloned) sites.

The distilled count of 'authentic' sites would be a more sobering figure - but not as exciting as 8 billion...

-Dino

[Tipsy]

Originally posted by baddog
Yes, the Google-bot is now using steroids, so now you have to compete with 8 billion instead of 4 billion for those 1,000 spots

Of course the other way to look at it is that the amount of indexed pages I have has now doubled too

[Tipsy]

Let's be honest about this though... If those 4 million pages weren't previously indexed then the chances are very good that they also weren't and still aren't pages that'll rank too highly either. And as with my post above it also in theory means a lot of the more neglected/chuck away stuff I/you own is now probably indexed where it wasn't previously.

Swings and roundabouts as they say over here

[polish_aristocrat]

Speaking about search engines, anyone know what Jet Eye is going to be?

http://www.jeteye.com/

[kmanrox]

Originally posted by hershie
from NY Times:

November 11, 2004
Microsoft Unveils Its Internet Search Engine, Quietly
By JOHN MARKOFF

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 10 - Microsoft rolled out its long-planned response to Google and Yahoo in the Internet search industry on Wednesday, but with an uncharacteristically soft-sell approach.

The debut, taking the form of a test site, was a stark contrast to another high-profile introduction the company made nine years ago. That was when Microsoft's chairman, Bill Gates, all but declared war on Netscape Communications and its Web browser by announcing his company's own browser, Internet Explorer, and proclaiming, "We are hard core about the Internet.''

On Wednesday, as Microsoft prepared to switch on its search engine at midnight Eastern time (beta.search.msn.com), the company made none of its top executives available for comment.

The highest-ranking official who was willing to discuss the rollout was Adam Sohn, director of sales and marketing for the MSN Web portal. He said Microsoft's intention was not to compete with Google, currently the Internet's dominant search engine, but instead to "delight" its own customers.

He discounted the widely held notion that Microsoft, which fought a bitter federal antitrust battle as a result of its actions against Netscape, had similar aggressive designs on the market for Internet search.

"I see zero parallel here," he said. "It's a different landscape."

Soft talk notwithstanding, Microsoft is carrying a big stick as it takes on Google and the No. 2 search site, Yahoo.

Microsoft said its MSN search engine would index five billion Web pages, which would make it the most extensive search database, depending on who is counting - and when.

Until recently, Google had said that its database indexed four billion pages. But on Wednesday, Google executives said that they were updating that count, to eight billion pages.

Microsoft is also offering search features meant to leverage the company's other online assets. One, called Direct Actions, enables a user to type in the name of a musical artist, song or album and then be linked immediately to Microsoft's MSN Music store. MSN Music increasingly aims to compete with Apple Computer's popular iTunes music download service.

But Internet search experts and industry analysts said that Microsoft still had far to go to be viewed as a serious competitor to either Google or Yahoo.

"Over all, I'm pleased it's out there," said Danny Sullivan, editor of SearchEngineWatch.com, an industry news site. "But it's not going to be a Google killer" anytime soon, he said.

With Microsoft, of course, soon is not always the point. Despite its take-no-prisoners approach to Netscape, the company's time-honored tradition - whether with spreadsheet software, word-processing software or the Windows graphical interface - has been to introduce highly imitative products and features, then gradually improve upon them.

The company has typically bided its time, using its dominance of the desktop operating system to wage a war of attrition that eventually allows it to control other categories of the computing market.

It is too early to say whether that pattern will hold true in the search field.

"The real question is, Does this do anything to change the traffic patterns for search?" said James H. Friedland, a financial analyst at SG Cowen, an investment firm. "They haven't done anything to leverage their monopoly position on the desktop."

That could happen later this year, however. Microsoft said Wednesday that it would announce a new desktop search tool before the end of the year.

If that ability were linked to the company's Web search engine in future versions of the Windows operation system - something that Microsoft would not discuss but that analysts expect - the move could place new pressure on Google and Yahoo.

Many of the features that Microsoft has incorporated into its new test service have been tried previously in the industry, with varying results.

The company, for example, has given its search engine the ability to understand natural-language queries, so that a user can phrase questions like "What is the capital of Turkey?" and receive the most useful answer, which is Ankara. More bare-bones keyword search techniques might elicit a reference to the turkey that the White House plans to pardon at Thanksgiving, Mr. Sohn of Microsoft said.

While another search service, Ask Jeeves, has long tried to answer questions that are typed in colloquial English sentences, Google came to prominence by analyzing the structure of the Web, rather than human languages, to determine the relevance of information to a user's query. (For the record, both Ask Jeeves and Google can ably provide relevant answers to "What is the capital of Turkey?")

Microsoft is also playing me-too in the increasingly popular field of local search with a feature called Near Me, which provides results tailored to a Web surfer's geographic locale. Both Google and Yahoo currently offer extensive local search capabilities.

In the long term, the importance of search in controlling access to the Internet cannot be overstated, in the view of Brewster Kahle, the founder of the Internet Archive, a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco that maintains a complete copy of the contents of the World Wide Web.

Fully 20 percent of all Web traffic now goes to 10 Web sites, and that list is dominated by search engines, he said. "The level of mind space that provides is enormous,'' Mr. Kahle said. "If you want to control the world, it's essential that you be there."

But in another indication that Microsoft means to take a gradual approach to the search market, the company said on Wednesday that it was not severing an important business link to Yahoo, which currently provides the search service on MSN. To the surprise of some analysts, Microsoft plans to continue using Yahoo's Overture advertising-placement service.

Overture displays text ads on MSN search-result pages and shares the revenue with Microsoft. Mr. Sohn said that Microsoft had no current plans to create its own competing advertising network.

But while dismissing talk of an Internet search war, Mr. Sohn acknowledged that Microsoft hoped its new search abilities might entice Web surfers who do not have what he termed a "religious" commitment to Google.

"Search is in its infancy," he said. "There has been an explosion of new entrants."

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