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IP: DIRECTORIES: Not what they seem
From: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 04:13:31 -0500
from the FT DIRECTORIES: Not what they seem By Louise Kehoe in San Francisco" On the internet they don't know you're a dog," a New Yorker magazine cartoonist once wrote beneath his sketch of a dog staring at a computer screen. Turning that commentary on its head, it might also be said that on the internet, you don't know when you have found a dog. Internet directories used to search for websites are not always what they seem. Most of the best known directory services present websites chosen on their merits, or selected automatically by search engines that pick out keywords to match search terms.Then there are those that promote websites of companies and organisations that pay to be included in their listings. A good example is GoTo which offers "market driven" searching. GoTo is very open about how it makes money. Search results are tagged according to how much advertisers pay if you choose to access their websites. Search for football, for example, and the results are ranked according to the amount each website bid for top billing under this search term, rather than any type of relevance ranking.Users might wonder about the value of GoTo's service, but the company is to be commended for full disclosure. What is the difference, after all, between its approach and that of the more familiar telephone Yellow Pages, where businesses buy advertisements to make their listings more eye-catching? As compared to the trickery that many websites employ to capture the attention of supposedly unbiased search engines, GoTo is perhaps a more legitimate approach.But other web directories - in particular specialised websites - may not be as forthcoming. Determining, for example, whether an internet travel guide recommends hotels based on sponsorships or on the opinions of travel experts is not always easy. The problem is that the lines between advertising and editorial have yet to be clearly drawn in ......
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- IP: DIRECTORIES: Not what they seem Dave Farber (Oct 29)