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Accoona Search Engine Feedback Requested

Discussion in 'All Other Search Engines' started by klance, Jan 14, 2005.

  1. #1
    I am a feedback and focus group analytical consultant for the new search engine Accoona (www.accoona.com). One of my jobs is to search out and gather opinions to create reports on what people think of the relevancy of the search results. When Accoona first launched, there were some complaints as to the relevancy of searches.

    Accoona is serious about listening to customers and Webmasters about the search technology and over the past several weeks they have made several algorithm changes to improve search results more. I’d appreciate any feedback you could provide, particularly in what you think of the new search results.

    Thank you for your time and feedback.

    Sincerely,


    Kim Lance
     
    klance, Jan 14, 2005 IP
  2. Michael

    Michael Raider

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    #2
    Hi Kim - I think that Accoona has a fundamental usability issue. Every popular search that I tried produced SPONSORED RESULTS above the fold and WEB RESULTS below the fold. You don't need to be a brain surgeon to guess that no one is ever going to use it the way it is for organic web search. It will be seen as 'advertising with a search engine' rather than 'a search engine with advertising'.

    - Michael
     
    Michael, Jan 14, 2005 IP
  3. SEbasic

    SEbasic Peon

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    #3
    Michael has a very valid point.

    It actually took me a while to realise that those results were sponsored. It wasn't until I noticed that they were really bad results that I had a look around for the "Sponsored Results" notice.
    I just wouldn't use a search engine if I had to scroll down to see the organic results comfortably (And I'm browsing at 1280x1024).

    Look at Google's results. Yes, the advertising is there, but it is certainly isn't in the way.
    You have kept the actual results pages very clean, with lots of space - which is great, I just want to see the organic results without having to scroll down.

    Anyway [End of rant],
    The organic results seem OK.
    I had a look at a few terms and wasn't appalled by the quality of them, but neither was I amazed.
    How many sites are in the index? A search for "The" (without the quotes), produced 410,250,100 results.

    I looked at some results for the sites we own, and was pretty astonished really.
    I have sites online, that have done nothing for ages that are ranking on the front page of the results, while others that are "Well SEO'd" and fairly large not getting anywhere near that far.

    I'm not too sure if this is a good or a bad thing really, I guess it's just a comment on what I would perceive to be more relevant results.

    I think you guys are making a great start, but I'm just not keen on the results pages, and think your organic results still need a bit of work (I am bias though).

    Cheers

    Oliver
     
    SEbasic, Jan 14, 2005 IP
  4. mopacfan

    mopacfan Peon

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    #4
    First, the layout looks like it was created by highschoolers, including the logo. Google is spartan, but it has a well thought out design. Accoona is just a page of links. G at least indents it's sub-results to make it easier to follow. The right side of the page (at 1280x1024) is just blank white space. I whole heartedly agree about the sponsored results above the organic results. It's not worth my effort to scroll to get to the organic results. As for the actual serps, just looking at my main kw, the results compared to G or Y. If the sponsored results were moved to the right and the organic results brought to the top, it would be much more useable. Lastly, ten results is so old school. 30 should be the minimum with options to display more. That's my take on it.
     
    mopacfan, Jan 14, 2005 IP
  5. pwaring

    pwaring Well-Known Member

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    #5
    I didn't like having the sponsored links above the organic ones either, I don't know whether it's intentional but I felt I was being tricked into clicking on them rather than the organic results (the only reason I noticed that they were sponsored was because I'd already read the other comments in this thread - the font size for "sponsored results" is too small to be noticed, especially relative to the rest of the text on the page).

    Also, you seem to be trying to emulate Google, the site layout looks very similar to me and to be honest you weren't offering me anything that existing search engines don't already.
     
    pwaring, Jan 14, 2005 IP
  6. mopacfan

    mopacfan Peon

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    #6
    Good call. That is a very true statement.
     
    mopacfan, Jan 14, 2005 IP
  7. nfzgrld

    nfzgrld Peon

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    #7
    I have to agree with most of the previous posts. The single biggest problem is the placement of those sponsored results is more of an impediment than most, including myself, are willing to deal with. It's too easy to put them to the side or otherwise separate them from the search results for anyone to put up with it. For me seeing ads that you really have to look at closely to know they're ads is no better than spam.

    I also noticed something else. If I do a "site:mari-len.com" (my site) I get back about 10 pages, including a VERY old title on the main index page. If I just search on "mari-len.com" it returns two pages, the main index title being almost up to date, but the title of the other page is fairly old. Something needs tweaking in there!

    Also, when did you crawl my site? There are a couple of "unknown" spiders that hit me farily often. If one of those is you guys you might want to take a look at what that spider is doing. Some of these "unknowns", and by the way, you should give the thing a name, seem to like my robots.txt more than my pages. 8 page hits and 26 on the robots .txt? Still more tweaking needed I'd say.
     
    nfzgrld, Jan 14, 2005 IP
  8. Refrozen

    Refrozen Peon

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    #8
    Your results are great, however the magnitude of the sponsored results is bad, the sponsors take up almost a full screen at my high resolution, and I only see the top real result (which happens to be exactly what I am looking for) the other problem I see, is the name... it's hard to remember how to spell (two double letters in a row, it looks like someone trying to copy Google or Yahoo's success too much)

    I also think this search engine relies too heavily on root domains or something, because, my website (refrozen.com) doesn't even show up on the first page for a query of "Refrozen" instead my DigitalPoint and Slashdot user accounts show up.... That is not very relevant IMO, although, maybe no one would want to see Refrozen.com :(? :p (btw, most of the other SEs show Refrozen.com as result #1 for Refrozen)

    Edit, for that matter, apparently you guys don't crawl much, all the pages indexed for Refrozen (except the homepage) are now redirects to the homepage because they no longer exist.
     
    Refrozen, Jan 16, 2005 IP