Omar Kattan » Search News

Real Time Search – The Twitter Model

Omar Kattan (online) — Wed, 27 May 2009 07:38:11 +0000

Think back, way back. Remember when Alta Vista was senonomous with search? How time flies. Google came along and re-defined what search means and the rest is history, or is it? Is Twitter the next Google? Maybe not yet, but to a large extent, Twitter is re-defining what search is by introducing th... Read more..

Search Engines Agree on Canonical Tag

Omar Kattan (online) — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 12:08:59 +0000

An agreement was struck yesterday by the three main search engines (Google, Yahoo and MSN) on the adoption of a new tag to tackle canonicalisation in the SERPs. Read more..

Google Search Wiki

Omar Kattan (online) — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 09:46:36 +0000

On Thursday, Google officially launched its much anticipated "Search Wiki" application found within its personalised Google search accounts. This move was hardly a surprise especially as Google's been dabbling with the idea of search Wiki as an experiment for some time now.

The idea behind search Wiki is simple. Google now allows users to custom design their search r... Read more..

New Engines on the Search Block

Omar Kattan (online) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 07:47:49 +0000

Over the past few months, two new search engines have been creeping their way into the limelight; Cuil and Wikia Search.

Quil (pron: Cool) was started by ex-Google engineers who now claim they have an index larger than that of Google's. While Wikia Search (brainchild of Wiki founder Jimmy Wales) harnesses the power of the masses to build the largest human edited search engine)

I used both engines over the past few weeks and while both offer new features, I don't think Google will lose sleep over either of them, here's why...

News Flash – Adobe’s Product More Search Friendly

Omar Kattan (online) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 07:30:24 +0000

Adobe recently announced it is has developed its Flash technology to enable search engine spiders to read the content within it.

In the past, search engines like Google were able to pick out links embedded in Flash files but unable to index the content within the Flash file. So even though humans were able to read the content, search engines couldn't actually see it.

Last w... Read more..

MSN Abandons Yahoo Bid

Omar Kattan (online) — Mon, 05 May 2008 04:25:14 +0000

After a few months of wrangling, MSN has now officially abandoned its efforts in bidding for Yahoo. Yahoo shareholders are now bracing themselves for a share slump as a direct result of this news.

MSN's decision to officially bid for the world's second largest search engine was made towards the end of January when it bid $45 Billion for Yahoo!. This bid was swiftly rejected.

Yahoo went on to make a deal with Google allowing... Read more..

Barbarians at Yahoo’s “Gates”

Omar Kattan (online) — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 13:42:46 +0000

Unless your head's been in the sand for the past week, you've probably heard by now Read more..

MSN to Buy FAST Enterprise Search

Omar Kattan (online) — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 15:21:38 +0000

MSN has announced that it will buy the FAST "Enterprise" Search engine for $1.2 dollars.

Fast is a Norwegian enterprise search company focusing on providing tailored search software and solutions to large global businesses. The deal was announced last Tuesday and gives Microsoft a strong footing in the Enterprise search market where "Fast" has traditionally been a leader.

Analysts say the purchase of Fast Enterprise Search will fill in the gap by giving Microsoft a strong footing in the business search sector and complement Mi... Read more..

Google’s Universal Search Extends to Blogs

Omar Kattan (online) — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 10:16:09 +0000

Back in June I posted about SEO for Universal Search and how the future of search results will, in some form or another include images, videos, maps, news, books and now blog posts! Yes, it is official folks, Google will in the coming weeks start to include blog posts as part of its search engine results pages (SERPS). This news was confirmed by Marissa Mayer, Google's VP of search products and user experience who was quoted as saying that Google search listings... Read more..

ASK Launches the Ask Eraser Privacy Tool

Omar Kattan (online) — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 09:50:26 +0000

In response to Google's promise to only keep search records for 12-18 months, asked has announced that it will allow its users to completely erase their search activity from the search engines within 2-3 hours. This development comes only 6 months after the official announcement by ASK. According to the ASK Eraser FAQ, users can now click a link on the homepage that will activate the privacy f... Read more..

Project “Google Body” – Indexing the Human Body

Omar Kattan (online) — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 06:16:53 +0000

Google has announced that it is well underway in its plan to index the Human body. This news was announced by Google VP of Product Development Eric Hind who commented:

"We're happy now to extend search to information about human bodies, mine and yours, inside and out, from the number of follicles on my head to the length of the President's toenails."

Google's body scanning project, code named "Google Body" is in partnership with US public entities such as transport departments and public libraries who... Read more..

Google Acquires Zingku

Omar Kattan (online) — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 18:22:45 +0000

Google unofficially announce it has acquired Zingku, a mobile social networking and communication platform. this is according to the unofficial Google Operating System blog. The Zingku service allows user... Read more..

Sergey Brin talks about the Google-NASA Partnership

Omar Kattan (online) — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 19:35:05 +0000

Sergey Brin is questioned about the NASA-Google partnership.

He answers questions, delves into topics such as A.I. and even discusses Keyhole - which was backed by In-Q-Tel, the CIA's front operation.

Enjoy...

[youtube 4md9IkVBchQ]

Iran Blocks Google Access

Omar Kattan (online) — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 12:39:53 +0000

Iran has decided to block access to Google search and Gmail service. This is supposedly part of a "clampdown on material deemed to be offensive" as reported by the Mehr news agency. Hamid Shahriari, secretary of Iran's National Council of Information said, "I can confirm these sites have been filtered." Si... Read more..

Bebo & Yahoo! announce strategic partnership

Omar Kattan (online) — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 08:27:34 +0000

Yahoo! and Bebo, the UK's largest social network, have forged an exclusive strategic partnership. As a result, Yahoo! will sell the majority of Bebo's display advertising in the UK and Ireland. This is Yahoo!'s first agreement of its kind... Read more..

Yahoo! Buys Blue Lithium

Omar Kattan (online) — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 09:51:43 +0000

Just in... Yahoo! has acquired Blue Lithium, a San Jose, California-based company with 100 employees. The price tag for the purchase... a whopping 300 million dollars! (thats £149.4 million). The purchase was an all cash deal! Blue Lithium is the 5th largest advertising network in the US and the 2nd largest ad netwo... Read more..

YouTube’s New In-Video Ad Format

Omar Kattan (online) — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 16:19:29 +0000

Google announced today that it will be launching a new "in-video" ad format on its sister site YouTube. T... Read more..

Google Moon

Omar Kattan (online) — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 16:49:16 +0000

Google has launched Google Moon in honor of the first manned Moon landing, which took place on July 20, 1969,

They've also added some NASA imagery to the Google M... Read more..

Jimbo’s Wikia Takes on Google

Omar Kattan (online) — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 10:58:24 +0000

A few months ago I wrote about building my very own Google using the open source software that is Read more..

Digg Dumps Google Ads for MSN

Omar Kattan (online) — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 20:19:54 +0000

Social networking site Digg has dropped Google Ads on its site for rival Microsoft AdCenter. The details of the deal were not disclosed as both companies declined to comment.

Digg is MS AdCenter's second high profile so... Read more..