Enterprise Search

Domain Name Registrar Search Tweak: Indicate that you already own It in Search Results

Many companies own lots of domain names, and manage them on one or two registrars.

When you do a search for a new domain it'd be nice if they listed domains that you already own differently from the domains owned by others. It's a little tricky for them sometimes, with different account associations or something.  It doesn't look like they do, at least the ones I've played with.

It's not really the main domains you'd need help with, most people know their key domains by heart, but it's all those other domain suggestions they mix into the results. Their results include different suffixes or word variations. Some of these are only suggested if they're available, but they also show the top level domains with a clickable check box or red X .

So a search on a registrar can show 30 domains on a screen, some with red X's, even if they're taken by you.

If some already do give us a comment.

Some of Yahoo's most valuable assets might switch to Google Search

Yahoo Japan is one of Yahoo's most valuable assets , but it is not fully owned by Yahoo and is not obligated by Yahoo's recent agreement with Microsoft to use Bing. There are a lot of posts about Google trying to reach an agreement with Yahoo Japan but the best one seems to be this one by Kara Swisher.  If they reach an agreement, Google would essentially control the Japanese search market.

The Alibaba Group owns Yahoo's name in China, and is partially owned by Yahoo. Its currently using Yahoos' search technology, but is also free to switch if it wants to. Yahoo Japan has partnered with Taobao (China's top ecommerce website and a subsidiary of the Alibaba Group) to list over eight million items in a Chinese-language TaoJapan section. That might cause a ripple effect if Yahoo Japan switches.

Yahoo Japan is very different from what somebody in the USA is used to. Its very localized , with what a non-Japanese would consider a very cluttered site. Even Google (in Japan) has customized its sparse splash page and added links to numerous services to try to cater to Japanese users. Yahoo Japan scans passerby's and puts personalized content on billboards . Supposedly the install CD from most Japanese ISPs sets the home page to Yahoo Japan, and few users bother to change it. Cheap 100Mbps residential broadband with a IP phone is also fairly standard. Why Yahoo! is more popular than Google in Japan has some more details.

Enterprise Search Summit 2010 - DC

Even as we prepare for ESS East in New York (ESS NY from now on?), Information Today has issued its call for papers for the first ever ESS-DC to be held in Washington DC November 16-18 2010.

Follow this link to find background on what InfoToday is looking for; or jump right to the submissions page. Don't be shy: everyone who presents papers had, at one time, never done it before. What you know, someone else needs to know!

In our experience, the kind of content InfoToday likes is the information that can help an organization select or manage search and related technologies. Generally, real-world stories about how other companies and organizations have succeeded with search are the ones that attendees appreciate the most. 

We'll also be having a searchdev dinner at ESS DC this year. Details to come late in summer, but plan for it now!

Are you doing search now? Have you been successful getting it going on time and under budget? Tell your story. Submit your idea now!

Forrester and Endeca on innovation in online retailing

Jesse Goldman of Endeca, Sucharita Mulpuru, of Forrester Research, and Kurt Peters of Internet Retailer will present a webinar to discuss inexpensive ways to effectively improve online innovation and user experience. The announcement adds that "Webinar attendees will discover new techniques to increase margins through effective merchandising, increase sales through a more engaging, differentiated user experience, and gain market share through greater customer acquisition and retention."

The webinar will take place on Wednesday, February 18 at noon Eastern Standard Time (GMT-5:00).

While retail and eCommerce seems to be the prime focus of the webinar, online retailing is about finding good ways to engage the customer and to present relevance information based on user queries and site navigation. The same kinds of techniques are increasingly important in customer-facing and internal web sites, since the cost - and the risk - of not finding the right content is even more important with weaker worldwide economies. We think this kind of information is critical to anyone involved in the management of search in the corporate environment, and we are looking for to hearing what they have to say.

Register for this Excellence in eCommerce webinar by following the link.