If you are not familiar with it, Delicious.com is what is called a social bookmarking site.  This means that users can save bookmarks on the site, organize them according to topics by using tags, and then share them with others.  The interesting thing about Delicious.com is that as people bookmark and share sites they come across, those sites gain in popularity.

This post, however, was written to deal with the searching capabilities of Delicious.com and how they compare to the oh so famous search engine, Google.

It occurred to me the other day, while researching for another post I was working on, that perhaps there are more research options out there than Google.  I then hit up good ol’ Delicious.com to see what I could find.  The results, although not perfect, were surprisingly sufficient!

Basically, Delicious and Google base their search result listings on different things.  If I am correct, Google’s search results are based upon “three distinct phases: spidering the web to find and read web pages, indexing the web pages found and responding to user queries to produce a set of ranked results.” (quoted from article entitled How Google produces relevant search results – Indexing and PageRank explained).  Delicious on the other hand is based more on user bookmarking habits and user tagging.

All of this means that both sites come up with search results.  The results are different and they are based on different things.  The quality of your search experience will depend on the topic of the search and even the terms you choose to use in your search.  I am hearing that Yahoo, using methods that Delicious uses, may be looking to change the way we search online.  Hold onto your seats, we may be into another search engine battle!

What about you?  Have you ever ventured off of the well-beaten Google search path and tried sites like Delicious for your searching needs?  What site do you prefer?  Let me know in the comments!

For years I’ve been using Morguefile.com to find photographs for free.

Morguefile.com is an interesting site because they have free photographs hosted there that you can “copy, distribute, transmit… and… adapt.“  In fact, attribution is not even required (a kind word for the author is always appreciated but not required).  Most photos for my blog posts were coming from this site.

Well, since then I have begun to use a plugin called Zemanta which makes it really easy to find photos for blog posts from WITHIN WordPress.  It also makes it easy to add links and tags but the photo is what was taking the most time to format to the posts.

Blogging is not the only place photos are used, though.  I use photos for all kinds of creative pursuits, including photo-puzzles, photo-manipulation, and even converting into clip art.  So, Morguefile.com still fills a void in my life.

Google now makes it east to find free photographs!

NOW, I just read a blog post on Google’s official blog that you can search for photos on their Image Search and narrow it down by license (ie. creative commons, etc.).  It’s really easy to use, just click the “Advanced Image Search” link and notice the “usage rights” section.  If you need help defining the terms, click on “more info.”

You can also search by license on Flickr.com, a Yahoo site.

With sources like these, who’d want to pay for stock photography?  OK, the quality may be a little better on a pay site, but with some sweaty effort, I think you can find some really good quality for free!  Morguefile.com, Google Image Search and Flickr just want to help a bit!

What is your favorite source of free photos?  And don’t tell me you steal other people’s graphics from their websites!

I was poking through some of the technology blogs I’m following via RSS in Google Reader and I came across an article highlighting a new feature Yahoo is getting ready to release.  Yahoo, you remember them?  I know Google and Bing get a lot of press but Yahoo’s still around ya know!  In fact, Yahoo is probably the primary search engine I use, still!

Anyway, this new feature is called “Search Pad.”  It appears to serve a similar purpose that Google Notes attempted to serve.  Yahoo, equipped with this “Search Pad” feature is supposed to tell if you are trying to research something, ask if you want to take notes (remember the sites you come across), and allow you to make notes by each site you visit.  You can also save the notes with your Yahoo account (you have one, right?).

Usually, I’ll use several methods of saving sites for research purposes, one of which is using a Google Doc to save links and notes.  I’m wondering if Yahoo has come up with a better solution.  Perhaps we’ll find out when it’s released!  Meanwhile, here’s a video Yahoo has released highlighting, well, the highlights of the tool:

I came across this site the other day and I coulnd’t help but pass it on.  The idea is that you can test three search engines (Yahoo, Google and Bing) to see which one consistently gives you the best results.

It’s easy!  Just hit up the site, type in your query, and hit search.  You are then given three columns containing search results but you are not told which results correspond with which search engine.  You then vote for the results that meet your needs best.  Finally, the search engines are revealed!

Try it out and tell me which search engine comes up with the best results for you!

Welcome to yet another Firefox Friday!

Fridays are great all on their own BUT they’re even greater with Firefox Friday!

OK, today I’m going to share yet another add-on or extension for Firefox that I hope will prove to be very useful: SearchStatus Firefox Extension.  This extension provides several rankings for any site you visit, inluding but not limited to Google PageRank and Alexa Ranking.  It places them conveniently in the bottom status bar of your Firefox browser.

Why would someone care about a site’s rankings?

Well, if a site is ranking high, it may indicate authority, meaning it may be relied on greatly by many people.  For instance, Yahoo.com‘s Google PageRank is 9/10 and their Alexa Rating is 2 (second to Google.com, I believe).  This may be an indication of reliability and quality of information, etc.

Rankings are also important to advertisers which means that marketers need to keep a close eye on their sites’ (and those of their customers) ratings.

Rankings are also just fun to watch!  With this plugin/add-on/extension, you can check out the rankings of all your favorite sites!

Here’s what it looks like on the status bar:

A right click on the “q” icon will bring you a menu:

As you can see, you have quick and easy to all kinds of information on the site you are visiting, including:

1. Whois (owner info)
2. robots.txt (a file crawlers use)
3. sitemap.xml (the sitemap that crawlers generally use)
4. and much more!

Explore all of the options and see how the SearchStatus Firefox Extension can help you!

Come on back next Friday and we’ll have another Firefox Friday together!