11–20 of 114 posts
I had no idea that that Diego worked on Inktomi. Although it makes sense why IndexTank worked fantastically. If I had to pick one reason why Google triumphed (and you can only pick one), I think it would be their Page Rank algorithm. It added that extra bit of awesome-sauce to and already tasty stew.
The Inktomi managers had the point of view of a generic MBA.
Everything followed from that difference of view.
I remember why I switched to Google: 1. speed, 2. simplicity. Relevance, meh. Never noticed much difference there. This led me to believe that PageRank was more about marketing (brilliant marketing) than technical edge.
If your users are that passionate, you're doing something right.
After I gave it a go for a while, the other reasons you list made me stay.
I remember why I switched to Google: 1. speed, 2. simplicity. Relevance, meh. Never noticed much difference there. This led me to believe that PageRank was more about marketing (brilliant marketing) than technical edge.
Back in the day you could be on the second page of Google search results before Excite or Altavista had even loaded.
Yahoo wasn't much faster.
According to a friend of mine who worked on the search team, Inktomi shifted its (management and CapEx) focus away from search and onto other projects. He thought at the time that even with the constraints of not competing with their own customers, there were things they could have done to better compete if management had chosen to do so. Edit: fixed typo
After I had switched to Google, I never understood why all of the competition just disappeared over night. You would think they would have given it a fight, but that never seemed to happen. At least this article gives a little insight to that. I still wonder what happened to Altavista.
AltaVista still exists. It's awful, and it's powered by the Yahoo search engine. Which is pretty much the same thing, I suppose.
Great article. One note: Google's dynamic abstracts were not only very useful, they also improved perceived relevance because they let users see why the pages were selected. When I was at Altavista, we were also blocked from doing dynamic abstracts by cost. Google's main advantages were: - managed by the founders with a total focus on search and measurable results - google's hiring process produced a very strong team…
If I just want to know when the next episode of Big Bang Theory is out or what the weather is today I rarely need to even click on a result. For more obscure technical searches at work, Google still finds more answers.
But remember - the barrier to change for a search engine's customers is very very low
A) it was fast, it loaded fast. B) it was not filled with ads and pop ups.
Only one of those is still true.