Is this one as Good as Google SEARCH

[! !]

:confused:
http://www.sensis.com.au/siteEntry.do

[digitalpoint]

What is sensis?

[jfontestad]

looks to be some Aus search engine.

[GuyFromChicago]

The results weren't terrible for me...but the site itself was painfully slow.

[anthonycea]

looks like an all Aussie search engine Shawn

http://www.sensis.com.au/search.do?find=anthonycea&location=&searchIndex=australia&x=60&y=16

[mddv]

Im aussie and sensis is a organisation that gathers statisics. I have never heard that they had a search engine.

[North Carolina SEO]

Considering many of my searches displayed my sites at the top for our keywords/phrases...great! ;)

[nacho45]

:confused:
http://www.sensis.com.au/siteEntry.do



It seems to be okay, but nothing about strikes me as "better" than google...in other words, no real reason to switch to them

[sarahk]

I ranked well too, and liked the alternative search option: good if you're not sure what words to use. Good for seo too, can see what other terms are recommended.

http://www.sensis.com.au/search.do?find=andrew+king+nz&location=&searchIndex=global&x=0&y=0

One site (mine) comes up over and over on the first page. Now, that's great for me but could be a bit repetitive for the user. Maybe Google's rule of 2 listings per site is not so bad.

Sarah

[jarvi]

Sensis is part of Australia's largest telco Telstra and used to just be their directory part, ie white and yellow pages, and is branching out with the purchase of Australia's largest classified seller plus other things. Their search engine is the latest foray and according to their press will be better than Google and MSN. Appears that it used to be goeureka.com.au as that now redirects to sensis.com.au

Not sure where they get all their search results because while you have the choice to search worldwide or Australia their submission details state:

Only Australian hosted or themed websites will be included in our index. If you are submitting a website that does not have a domain ending in .au, please note that it will only be considered for inclusion if it is hosted within Australia, or contains Australian content.

Having a quick look at one of my keywords and sites it looks similar to yahoo! for the worldwide results.

So, unless you are targeting the Australian market (and I don't think there are too many Aussies here focusing on this market) there's not much need to worry about it.

[anthonycea]

The Poll is senseless, how can you compare a one country search to Google?

[sarahk]

(and I don't think there are too many Aussies here focusing on this market)
Maybe not, but the New Zealanders are happy to take their money!

That whole domain/hosting issue is really interesting. With the smaller countries selling off their .tv .it type domains to all and sundry, it's common to have a country focussed site with an alternative domain.

Then you have to look at the cost of hosting at home as opposed to in the big web farms in the USA and the locals suffer some serious problems. Even the local companies have some of their servers in the states while telling their customers that they are local - so you could be stung anyway.

I'd rather see the SE use it's algorthim to determine if the content was sufficiently focussed.

[matturn]

Im aussie and sensis is a organisation that gathers statisics. I have never heard that they had a search engine.

I'm Aussie and they only collect stats for marketing purposes.

Sensis owner Telstra is in the perfect position to create an excellent Australian search engine. It has:

99% of the Phone Directory market
Australia's largest collection of classifieds (Trading Post)
Australia's most powerfull online map service (WhereIs)
CitySearch Australia
A licence to use Inktomi (Yahoo!) - the US's biggest supplier of search results
Australia's biggest ISP (BigPond)
Australia's biggest mobile phone service
50% of Australia's near monopoly pay TV content platform (Foxtel)
The Official Website of Australia's biggest sporting league (the AFL)
Looksmart Australia and it's network of advertisers and advertisees
Other emerging content properties, like a real estate service and a NetFlix clone

It has the contact details for nearly every business and person in Australia. If someone wants to find one of these - Sensis should be the place to do it. Google Local only works in the US because it has phone directory data. If Sensis doesn't sell it any, it's going to have a hard time getting established here.

However, at present the Sensis search has less data sources than it's media releases say. And it's interleaving of results is bizzare. To find people or businesses, it's still easier to use the seperate White and Yellow Pages sites. But when (if) Telstra get their act together, this will be a seriously good search engine for Australians.