Online business Toolkit

Five years ago: Web site offers search engine gen

Martin Veitch ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 15 Jun 2002 07:02 BST

First published 17 June, 1997.

A new site dedicated to monitoring Internet search engines has appeared. Search Engine Watch is aimed at keeping Web developers and other users aware of business and technology developments in the search area. The site is a superset of the existing A Webmaster's Guide To Search Engines.

"Every browser bug one could imagine was widely reported earlier this year, but hardly a word was mentioned about the fact that several major search engines were not actively crawling the Web for weeks or even months," said the developers in a prepared statement.

"Listings were going stale, but no one knew. Likewise, little has been mentioned about how large sections of the Web are becoming invisible to search engines that haven't kept pace with developments such as frames. Or how many free Web pages provided by Internet access providers may be intentionally passed over by search engines."

The site includes graphical representations of search engine performance, analysis of different engines and their histories, and a huge list of links, tips and tutorials.