IP: DIRECTORIES: Not what they seem

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

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 
......