Build Date: Thu May 1 02:00:39 2025 UTC
Expensive tequila means you just pay more for your evil.
-- Johnnie Royale
Web Search Engines Are Falling Down on the Job!
1999-07-07 18:18:38
Scientists say that all of the search engines -- AltaVista, Google, Excite, etc., etc., -- have absolutely MISERABLE performance, and they are getting WORSE. Not a single engine has indexed more than 16% of the Web's estimated 800 million pages.
Even when you combine the results of all the major search engines together, they only cover approximately 40% of the 15 terabytes of data available on the web.
How are you supposed to even do a search like that?! Metacrawler and Dogpile, etc., aren't comprehensive enough. You would have to write your own search tools or something! And that would make you CRAZY!
When the same scientists (researchers at NEC) looked at search engines in 1997, coverage was significantly BETTER. Last time around, some search engines managed to cover as much as a third of the web. So basically, the web has been growing so fast, and getting so OBESE, that the search engines have not been able to keep up for one reason or another...
Meanwhile, HotBot, Excite, Lycos, etc., keep adding new gadgets and features, and redesigning their interfaces and home pages.
AltaVista, for instance, recently added "paid listings" (read: bribes to skew search results) and they redid their home page again this month. That's another thing that the study points out -- search engines are badly BIASED in favor of commercial stuff in the United States. They don't index stuff at universities (.edu) or in Canadia (.ca) as much. So "paid listings" are probably not going to help matters there.
Maybe the search engines should try concentrating on COVERAGE. Barry Rubinson, AltaVista's VP of Engineering, says their index currently contains only 150 million pages. Now AltaVista has a a new "Search Freshness Guarantee," reminiscent of Budweiser's "Born On Dating," which promises that links are only a month old at most. That's great, but how are they going to live up to their stated goal of indexing the ENTIRE WEB?
I mean, GAR!! If you search for "+Pigdog +DiCaprio" NO RESULTS COME BACK. We have told them to index our "Leonardo DiCaprio Exposed As A Freemason!" article a hundred times!
To be fair, AltaVista has been going through some tumultuous times, being sold on the auction block and whatnot, and I don't mean to just pick on them...
Netscape, for another example, just redesigned their search engine, too. It now uses Google instead of Excite, and it has some sort of voodoo shit from "Smart Browsing" thrown in.
Crapola Engine, Northern Lights, supposedly has the most comprehensive index. I just tried a search for "Pigdog" on it, and the whole thing timed out (Uh, great).
The results of this search engine study are published in an article in "Nature." So I'm not making this up. These search engines are quite impotent.
T O P S T O R I E S
California Glory Hole attracts huge crowds
A glory hole at Napa's Lake Berryessa is drawing huge crowds. According to Chris Lee, the general manager for the Solano County Water Agency, the glory hole hasn't been active since 2019, and only restarted operations on Feb 4. (More...)
Republican State Senator busted after soliciting a teenage girl
Republican State Senator Justin Eichorn of Minnesota was arrested for soliciting a teen girl on Monday just hours after he introduced a bill proposing "Trump derangement syndrome" (TDS) as a form of mental illness. (More...)
Parents claim measles is not that bad after having only one child die
The parents of a Texas girl who died from the measles are defending their decision not to vaccinate their daughter. "She says they would still say 'Don't do the shots,'" an unidentified translator for the parents said. "They think it’s not as bad as the media is making it out to be." (More...)
Delusional rich man tries to fire town staff
"I'm mayor now" said write-in mayoral candidate and founder of Pirate’s Booty Snacks Robert Ehrlich after losing the election for Mayor of Sea Cliff, NY. Then he tried to take over the Village Hall and fire everyone. (More...)
Musk claims Xitter security is staffed by idiots
Earlier this month Xitter experienced a massive outage. In an interview, Musk told Fox Business that he believes the attack came from "IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area." (More...)
The Future Ain't What It Used To Be
Ideas have taken horrifying shape and rooted into our modern reality. (More...)
C L A S S I C P I G D O G
This week: another fine spocktail from the beverage researchers at SMRL! Drink it in peace, because WE DID THE RESEARCH! (More...)
Spock Went, Spock Wrote, Spock Kicked Ass
Every Labor Day weekend a large portion of the PDJ staff joins 30,000 other freaks at one of the biggest and strangest art festivals in the world - Burning Man - somewhere on the edge of the Black Rock Desert. Our base of operations is always the ultra swank Spock Mountain Research Labs - the World Leaders in Beverage Science and Leisure Technology. This year, we hauled up our computers, printers and a massive digital duplicator, determined to become Black Rock City's third daily newspaper. Even Spock was surprised by our success - news will never be viewed the same on the playa. Read all seven issues of the 2002 Spock Science Monitor for yourself and see why. (More...)
Absinthia: The Pigdog Interview
Absinthe is making a come back for the Millennium. Even English people are slurping it down in pubs, eschewing their normal, healthy stouts and ales. And why not? Hell, if the planet is going to explode anyway, why not ride the DEATH WAVE in, and celebrate Y2K with the most entertaining and vicious elixir you can find? Come! Explore the "Absinthe Underground" with El Snatcher, Mr. Bad, and Splicer, as they interview the notorious absinthe bootlegger, Absinthia. (More...)
The Liquidation of Hobo Junction
Albany, CA's homeless hooverville by the Bay, "Hobo Junction," is going to be torn down by The Man. Entrances are already being blocked off, and it's now difficult and dangerous to get there. Worse, these obstacles are making it hard to get to the nearby HORSE TRACK on foot. Local historian, Pao Tzu, has an overview of situation. (More...)
Put the "Life" Back in SF "Nightlife"
The Man is putting the hurting on San Francisco clubs, but some people are fighting back. Beajolais! Flesh interviews Leslie Ayers of the San Francisco Late Night Coalition. (More...)
Boo-zho-lay for you, Pigdog reader! Another fine Spocktail of the week is available for you. And this week's offering is EXTRA special and fancy, since it celebrates the birthday of Pigdog's own STAR TWINS! (More...)