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- Search and Google Aren't Synonymous
Accelerating IT Sales | Jun 10, 2009 | Permalink
There has been quite a bit of disappointment over Google, Yahoo and Microsoft searches, and their agreement in censoring search results as part of China's Golden Shield Project. According to Wikipedia the Golden Shield Policy is the censorship and surveillance project operated by the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) of the People's Republic of China. Because of this policy, some people have ceased their use of Google, Yahoo and Microsoft searches, and are looking for alternative search engines to fill the void. In complying with the Chinese government's censorship policies, the following appears when a censored term is searched using the popular search engines: In accordance with local laws, regulations and policies, part of the search result is not shown. (translated). And while the...
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- Search and Google Aren't Synonymous
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 of the <a href='http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/'>People's Republic of China</a>. Because of this policy, some people have ceased their use of Google, Yahoo and Microsoft searches, and are looking for alternative search engines to fill the void. </p>
<p>In complying with the Chinese government's censorship policies, the following appears when a censored term is searched using the popular search engines: <em>In accordance with local laws, regulations and policies, part of the search result is not shown.</em> (translated). And while the search engines have been censoring their results for several years at this point, the censorship controversy has been in the news recently due to the recent <a href='http://www.olympic.org/uk/index_uk.asp'>Beijing Olympics</a> and the heavy media presence in the country.<br/>
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Even though the problem encountered by journalists covering the Olympics had more to do with IP addresses being blocked (for "controversial" sites like <a href='http://www.amnesty.org/'>Amnesty International</a> and <a href='http://news.bbc.co.uk/chinese/simp/hi/default.stm'>BBC China</a>), the renewed interest in China's Internet policies has served to push the search engine censorship issue back into the mainstream. You can read more about what exactly Google (and other search engines) censors in <a href='http://www.diggpoint.com/google-censorship-how-it-all-works/'>Google Censorship - How it all Works</a>, an informative article on <a href='http://www.diggpoint.com/'>Narender</a>, an Internet marketing and creation oriented blog. </p>
<p>I've compiled a list of search engine alternatives that can be used as an alternative to the big 3 who operate under Chinese regulations.</p>
<p><a href='http://www.dogpile.com/'><br/>
<img src='http://www.acceleratingitsales.com/dogpile_revised.gif' height='40' alt='dogpile_revised.gif' align='right' width='150'/>Dogpile</a> is a search engine with a twist - instead of indexing the results for one search engine, it compiles and indexes results from 6 separate search engines to return a robust selection of results. Owned by InfoSpace, Dogpile has been around since 1996, and has won awards for customer satisfaction. Be warned however! The list of search engines that Dogpile uses to compile their results includes: Google, Yahoo! Search, and Live Search. I guess it's not a great alternative if you want to go totally Google-Yahoo-Microsoft free. </p>
<p><a href='http://www.ask.com/?o=0&l=dir'>Ask.com</a> is one of the larger search engines, and has been around since 1996. Formerly AskJeeves (home to the online butler who was supposed to answer your questions), the Ask.com algorithm provides relevant search results by identifying the most authoritative sites on the Web.</p>
<p><a href='http://www.factbites.com/'>FactBites</a> has an interesting take on returning search results - instead of simply returning a site's description, it presents real, meaningful sentences related to the topics you're searching about. So instead of simply directing users to the self-created descriptions about the websites they're searching, FactBites digs a little deeper and gives you a more informed look at their results. </p>
<p><img src='http://www.acceleratingitsales.com/Mahalo_revised.gif' height='61' alt='Mahalo_revised.gif' align='left' width='150'/><a href='http://www.mahalo.com/'>Mahalo</a> (which means thank you in Hawaiian), bills itself as "the world's first human-powered search engine," and prides itself on better organizing the information they compile so that searchers save time and find what interests them quickly and easily. Search terms are organized into pages (like Fashion or Gadgets), and sub-topics are further categorized into lists on each main page. This kind of search is great for looking for topics to blog on (something I spend plenty of time doing), or for researching specific products.</p>
<p><a href='http://www.chacha.com/'>ChaCha</a> is a potentially cutting-edge earch engine that allows users "to ask any question in conversational English and receive an accurate answer as a text message in just a few minutes." ChaCha is a cool mobile tool, as you send text messages to the engine, and receive responses on your mobile device. Once your question is received, it's routed to the most knowledgeable ChaCha Community Guides (real people!) who are required to pass tests before they're able to work answering queries. </p>
<p><img src='http://www.acceleratingitsales.com/cuil_revised_2.png' height='54' alt='cuil_revised_2.png' align='right' width='100'/><a href='http://www.cuil.com/'>Cuil</a> is a brand new search engine (launched on July 28, 2008), and claims to be the biggest search engine on the Web. Based out of Menlo Park, California, and founded by a former Google executive, Cuil claims to have indexed 120 billion Web pages - three times more than any other search engine. I checked out Cuil, and while this blog didn't come up in the top 10 search results when I entered the name (Accelerating IT Sales), the user interface is a pleasure, and I could see myself overlooking the ranking issue and giving the engine a fair shake. </p>
<p>There are plenty of other search engines out there just waiting to be discovered by those who are tired of, or want something different from Google. You can find comprehensive lists of search engines in this <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_search_engines'>Wikipedia article</a>, including topic-specific and niche engines that you might otherwise never hear about. Happy Searching!</p><img src='http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~r/AcceleratingItSales/~4/ZZr__fsgKlo' height='1' width='1'/>)
