Barry “I Never Stop Typing Schwartz” Ends His Coverage of SES. Well done, as always to Barry and crew.

+ Search Engine Q&A On Links (Ramez MSN Search, Kaushal Ask.com, Adam Google & Rajat Yahoo!)
+ Vendor Chat on Measuring Success
+ Balancing Organic and Paid Listings

Google Tweaks Home Page UI
Moved to a drop down box (click the more link) are Froogle and Google Groups. They’ve been replaced with a link to Video. As many of us who train searchers know, if it’s not right in front of a searcher, it’s very often forgotten or goes undiscovered/unused. Very sad but true. Btw, this is not only an issue for Google but for search tools of all types.

This is why we are seeing more and more results from “specialty” or “vertical” sites directly on the web results page. Google offers their OneBox (example 2) while MSNand Yahoo also do the same type of thing. Ask.com also offers a wide array of what they call “Smart Answers” that trigger if the query string suggests this might be what the person is looking to find. From “today in history” to up-to-the-minute blog postings and business info, to images and maps from their image dbase (Ask began this in 2003) and maps databases to wedding registries. Search historians will likely remember that placing answers or potential answers from non-web databases was started by AltaVista in 2002.

Hat Tip, Google Blogoscoped.

+ Jimmy Wales Interviewed (via Tech Review)

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