Amazon's Search Engine Goes Live

fjordboy writes "John Battelle has posted a discussion and review of Amazon's new search engine: a9.com. From the article:"What makes this particularly noteworthy is that A9 is built quite literally on top of Google. In short, Amazon has taken the best of Google, and made it, to my mind, a lot better. Sound familiar? Yup, it's what Google did to Yahoo, Yahoo to Netscape...you get the picture." "

People who searched for "warez" also read...

[LostCluster]

This really doesn't seem to be much of a breakthrough aside from the fact that they are running your serarch past Google, Amazon.com and Alexa at once and presenting a unified interface.

This is like an infomerical from Amazon trying to pretend to be programming. I'll take my Google straight, and go to Amazon.com when I want to go shopping, thank you very much.

Weird findings regarding IE

[Patik]

On their "what's cool" [a9.com] page, they say you can just hover your cursor over the 'site info' button below search results to see more info without leaving the page (works in IE but not Firefox).

So I searched for Windows [a9.com] and hovered over the site info for the Internet Explorer Home Page (the second result), and the bubble that pops up says:

People who visit this page also visit:

• mozilla.org
• The Gnome DOM Engine
• Adobe's SVG Viewer

So people are looking for IE but turn to Mozilla instead? Are people searching for "web browser" and clicking on Mozilla out of interest?

Here are the top links for "web browser" [a9.com]: Mozilla, Firefox, Opera, Opera again, Safari, Lynx, Galeon, Netscape, Anybrowser.org, and evolt.org.

Not a single link to IE on the first page of results for "web browser"? Fishy.

A9 Search Plugin for Firefox

[sgarrity]

I whipped up a quick A9 Search Plugin for Firefox [actsofvolition.com].

So check this out - a9's Booty Filter.

[Anonymous Coward]

They're running some serious anti booty filters.

Try this:

Google: 'suicide girls' (you know you've been there)

Now a9 'suicide girls'

Hold the two results up next to one another. See?

Try this with other, ahem, keywords.

Reputation

[SeanTobin]

I used to use altavista as my search engine way back when. Then, they decided that thier users were less important than thier customers. From there after about 8-9 months of use and being set as my homepage - I dumped altavista for google.

Google has proven over and over again that thier primary concern is for thier users. They have found ways to make money via ads that in no way interupt the user. New features are constantly being developed that will benefit users.

[side note: I am planning on signing up for gmail and using it as my primary webmail app. I do not consider it an invasion of privacy if I see an add for serial cables when someone sends me an email with a set of rs232 pinouts. I actually find it to be a unique situation where both google's users and customers can benefit]

Now, look at amazon. This is a company that has decieved users numerous times. Anyone remember the price mismatches between repeat customers and new customers? How honest is my search going to be if I look for '+"golf club" order online'? Something tells me I'll end up at a amazon.com page.

I understand that a similar situation could occour with froggle. The fact is it has not happened in either of them yet. However based on reputation, I would bet it would happen with google last.

Re:Tinfoil Hat Not Required

[MrBlue VT]

Yeah, the fact that they don't provide direct links to the pages also throws my paranoia into overdrive. This is the link that you get when you search for Slashdot:

http://a9.com/-/search/a9-redirect.jsp?url=http:// slashdot.org/&title=%26lt%3Bb%26gt%3BSlashdot%26lt %3B%2Fb%26gt%3B%3A+News+for+nerds%2C+stuff+that+ma tters&token=0A3316C2D3DF4FF99CB34DD1FCCFD04B&t=108 19845643&qt=ws

Clicky. [a9.com]

So basically they can track whatever pages you go to.

Nice touch

[CGP314]

I like that they used a beta symbol for the B. I wonder how many people will notice.


-Colin [colingregorypalmer.net]

Will Amazon copy Google's biggest feature?

[MilenCent]

To me, the best thing about Google, the reason I'd use it even if they fell down to Xty place in the Search Engine race is simply the announced, honest desire to not do evil.

How unique and wonderful was it when Google released their search engine with no ads, a clean interface, and no loathsome sponsored links? Even when they introduced ads, they made sure they're clearly labeled as such, and made entirely of text.

In short, Google treated me as a person, and not a pair of sticky eyeballs. Meanwhile, Amazon has long been known to be well acquainted with the Not-Not-Evil path -- remember the patent on one-click shopping?

Even Google's missteps have been honest. They have a cookie on their site and probably log searches, and Gmail may have privacy problems, but still, Google is probably the least evil for-profit tech company I know of.

I'll admit that I'm watching Google pretty closely at the moment to see what happens with Gmail, but honestly, so long as they're up front with users about what they're doing and don't try to bury the permission clause in the TOS language, I'm fine with it. I even had an idea for a kind of art project, a voluntary, massive, transparent clipboard sharing project, that I've given serious thought to implementing that would probably be worse than what Google's doing, but I still think it'd be okay so long as the user knows it's a privacy concern ahead of time, and has his attention purposely drawn to it, preferably with big red letters. In fact, for me that'd just increase Gmail's cool factor, as I'm so boring that any federal investigators looking at my mail would only get a good laugh and 100k of spam for their trouble.

On Linux, Again

[AnuradhaRatnaweera]

Similar to Google [netcraft.com] A9 is running on Linux [netcraft.com]. But isn't it the first time a [major?] search engine [to be?] is running Apache?

Re:a9? What 9?

[donutz]

Amazon.com => A9

"A" plus 9 more characters.

But then you go an add a .com to the end...I guess A5.com didn't sound cool enough or was already taken.

way back when...

[Pahroza]

And here are the Way Back When Machine [archive.org]'s results for a9.com [archive.org].

Accuracy...Reliability

[codeonezero]

Any web engine where software I wrote comes up as first result when searching for an eggtimer is ok with me ;-)

And no I didn't google bomb it or anything.

Re:Tinfoil Hat Not Required

[pyrros]

I'm also concerned with this, although google seems to do the same thing from time to time (actually quite rarely)

But they do seem to have something for the tinfoil hat crowd: generic.a9.com [a9.com]. They claim that they dont keep any info from searches done through there.

If you would prefer not to be recognized on our site, we recommend that you use our alternate service located at generic.A9.com. On generic.a9.com, we will not recognize your A9.com or Amazon.com cookie. Information we gather on generic.a9.com will not be used in our data analysis (other than to detect abuse) and will not be used to personalize the services we offer you. [link] [a9.com]

Re:People who searched for "warez" also read...

[radixvir]

interesting actually searching for warez [a9.com] returns no results....they must be censoring the results when its in their best interest (they sell software).

What's in a name?

[crushinghellhammer]

This may sound like a silly thing to say, but "a9" just doesn't have the ring to it that "google" does.

It sounds like one of those sites you access by typing in the IP address, and those are usually shady, heh.

Apart from the lack of the features mentioned in the posts below, the visual interface is nothing to write about either.

Keep working on it, Amazon. It'll only make the folks at Google work harder, and make it better.

Re:Will Amazon copy Google's biggest feature?

[maelstrom]

Yeah since you don't have anything to hide, why not give all your data to Google. Hell, why not give me your e-mail password? Or is it just okay for Google employees "optimizing" their search to read your e-mail?

Re:People who searched for "warez" also read...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oddly enough, searching for "warez keyz" gets results.

http://a9.com/warez%20keyz [a9.com]

Re:Ads

[cybergibbons]

Who said Google was built on top of Yahoo? I missed that.

First Search Reveals Lacking feature

[dan_polt]

The ability of google to group things from the same site together is a gem, which allows a better chance to find what you want, IMHO. (Where you get a little link to click to see more results from x site).

So my search for some well crawled site brought up first page of links from the same site.

And come on, the colour isn't exactly easy on the eyes.

Neon Search Genesis

[griffjon]

In the beginning, there was archie and veronica and WAIS, and information spread freely across the land. Then the "web" came along, and there were search engines. There was the venerable Internet List, and then there was Yahoo, and it was good. In time, though, the directory structure of Yahoo! was overwhelmed, and AltaVista took over as the premiere "search engine", as they were now called, and people could find web pages across the globe. and the wise people at Altavista prevented the disaster of a new Tower of Babel and created the Babelfish to let us read German technical manuals, and we all prospered. But even in this golden age, AltaVista could not see high enough over the web to present search findings, and new, pointy-haired bosses added portal weight to it, and altavista was no longer worth it.

But Google dawned, bringing the power of information back into the hands of the people, and we could all see again, even though the light was blinding.

Then, A9 was presented, and tried to capture the glory of Google, but well, it sucked.

~the end~

Re:A Google Killer

[dalelane]

Somehow, I don't think that the Google killer will license Google's search.

hmmm... does seem a little odd.

since they've started talking about it, (e.g. news article - sep 2003 [internetnews.com]) they seem to have been trying to pitch it as something to beat google, so is a surprise how heavily they have ended up relying on google!

Re:People who searched for "warez" also read...

[jelwell]

Fuck doesn't work either.

I'd be interested in finding out what words amazon is censoring.
"Janet Jackson" works just fine. ;)
Joseph Elwell.

Re:Tinfoil Hat Not Required

[itsdave]

generic.a9.com still has a redirect link for all search results with what appears to be trackable information.

library usage?

[mahbidness]

So it's apparent that the content is filtered fairly heavily. While this is a no go for most people, this seems like it might not be a bad default search page for younger (pre and grade school) crowds, and perhaps libraries. A search like "Kinetics" turns up identical results in both, while the results of "porn" are markedly different. It seems that most of the content could be reasonably rated "R" at worst. Of course, this opinion is only from a cursory usage.

Re:Privacy?

[Geoff-with-a-G]

Does anybody really WANT Amazon to be storing our searches on their server forever and a day?

Yes.

It's fine to have privacy concerns about companies storing information about you, but when you get to the point where you actually find it hard to believe that there are people out there who want these features, you are seriously out of touch.

Personally, I use Amazon quite often, and I like that they build a profile on me and use it to tune which products they show me. I wish they were even better at it.

But my personal preference, as well as the personal preferences voiced in most of the comments above (never record any of my information ever!) aren't going to determine the success or failure of this search engine. That will be determined by volume of users, and especially the volume of users who click-through and end up buying products via the ads and links there.

Spending a lot of time on slashdot, one can easily lose perspective, and begin to get the impression that "practically everyone" will be opposed to a search engine that stores a history of their results. This is, however, drastically false. I would estimate that at least 25% of internet users won't even understand conceptually that their information is being stored at Amazon, but will see this as something the "the internet program" does for them.