Big changes at Infoseek
- Sep. 21, 2000
There has been much speculation about the future of Go.com in recent months. There had been rumors in the past that the search service was eventually going to become a more entertainment-oriented search tool, but no actual changes seemed to be taking place. Today we received word of a new beta version of the site that is currently being tested. The new site is a big change, but we feel it is a change for the better.
The Current Site
Currently, two different databases are present at Go.com: the Infoseek-powered spidered index and the human-edited Go Guides directory. Searches on Go.com now return results mostly from the Infoseek index; sites added to the Go Guides directory are accessible through the category listings on Go's front page. Though a site must be indexed by the spider to be returned as a search result, past observation and testing has shown us that sites indexed by the Infoseek spider and rated and included into the Go Guides directory have the best chance of being returned by a search at Go.com. Thus, SEP has always considered inclusion in the Go Guides directory to be quite important to any site hoping to rank at Go.com.
The New Site
The version of the site currently being tested also uses both the Go Guides directory and the Infoseek index, but uses the two sources differently. The page first displays results taken explicitly from the Go Guides directory, under the heading "Proven Picks". The relevant sites rated most highly by the Go Guides achieve the first five rankings on the first page of search results, followed by a link to the next ten matches from the directory. Directly below are five results from the Infoseek index under the heading "Web Search Results", and a link to the next ten results from this source.
Submission to the Go Guides directory has always been a priority at SEP, since it was necessary for a site to be included there to achieve top rankings at Go.com. As a result, the majority of our existing clients are have already been included and rated by Go Guides. Sites that have been ranking well at Go.com should continue to do so, while sites that have been included by Go Guides but haven't been ranking highly now have a better chance doing so. In fact, any site included in a category containing 25 sites or less is basically guaranteed to be on the first three pages of results; where the sites place within these pages depends completely on the quality of the site. This simply means that well-designed sites achieve better rankings, which will please most webmasters.
We will continue to research this development and update this site as there are developments.Darren Downey
darren@searchengineposition.com
For furthur information, please read the following statement from Michael Eisner, CEO of Disney, Go.com's parent company.
As you may be aware, The Walt Disney Company is the parent company of GO.com and, as Disney's chairman and CEO, I am very pleased to help pull back the curtain to reveal a completely new GO.com. We are calling the new GO a "Web Guide" because it is designed to be an easy way to help you find what you want on the World Wide Web - especially in the "free time" areas of entertainment, sports, news, travel and other leisure activities.
With the new GO.com, we've created a fresh and compelling way to find everything you're looking for on the Web with just one search click. All the features you already enjoy about GO are still there - like
MyPage and GO.com e-mail. But now, we are combining GO's powerful search engine with a "human touch" - that is, the input of our volunteer Internet community of 35,000 GO Guides who personally review, rate and rank multitudes of Web sites. For example, if you're searching for "ski resorts in Colorado," the new GO search results page shows you the top GO Guide-rated Web sites on this subject along with the results from the search engine. And, right next to those results you will find a number of displays to help you arrange travel to Colorado, including ski resort information, weather forecasts and more. But don't take my word for it. You can see for yourself by clicking on http://beta.go.com.
To celebrate the launch of the new GO, we're sponsoring a great welcoming campaign featuring more than 1400 fantastic prizes, to be given away daily, as well as an amazing grand prize - a trip to Africa for a genuine safari adventure. Click on
http://newgointown.go.comfor details on entering for your chance to win. And be sure to enter every day, as a new drawing for new prizes will take place daily.
Thank you for using GO.com. I hope you'll enjoy our new Web Guide experience, and that it will help you make the most of one of your most valuable personal possessions -- your free time.
Michael Eisner
Chairman and CEO, The Walt Disney Company
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