Delivered-To: dfarber+@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2003 17:07:06 -0400
From: Paul Levy <PLEVY@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Danny Sullivan on Verisign's Site Finder
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Without necessarily endorsing his position, I thought you might want to
pass on the following comments from search engine guru Danny Sullivan on
the controversy over the Verisign Site Finder, published in the Serach
Day newsletter. (forwarded with his permission)
Paul Alan Levy
Public Citizen Litigation Group
1600 - 20th Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20009
(202) 588-1000
http://www.citizen.org/litigation/litigation.html
>>> "Search Day" <reply-5242-1943-8a08fde102@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 09/17/03
02:11PM >>>
Search Engine Watch: Tips About Internet Search Engines & Search Engine
Submission
VeriSign's New Site Finder Redirects Bad Domain Traffic
By ( mailto:danny@xxxxxxxxxxx ) Danny Sullivan
VeriSign is now resolving requests for non-existent .COM and .NET
domains to an error page that features a search engine that it operates
called ( http://sitefinder.verisign.com/ ) Site Finder, a move that's
quickly raised controversy.
Previously, such bad requests would have resulted in an error that in
turn would be handled in different ways by various browsers.
For example, consider a request for the non-existent ww.amazon.co.uk
web site. Entering that into Internet Explorer produces an error page
saying, "We can't find ww.amazon.co.uk." The page provides an option to
search the web using the Microsoft-owned MSN Search service. It's also
offers the helpful message, "Did you intend to go to one of these
similar Web addresses?" with the correct www.amazon.co.uk site listed as
a link.
You can still see the error message shown above in Internet Explorer
because the domain I used in the example does NOT end in .COM or .NET.
For those domains, a change that VeriSign made on Monday means you'll be
redirected to its search engine (if this isn't yet happening for you,
it's because it will take a few days for the new system to fully
propagate across the web).
The move, only days old, is already proving controversial. VeriSign is
being accused of hijacking traffic, though who exactly "owns" the
traffic to non-existent domains is entirely unclear.
Indeed, back when Netscape introduced "Smart Browsing," it faced
accusations from .COM domain owners that it was somehow robbing them of
traffic. For example, prominent blogger Dave Winer at the time was
disturbed that those entering just the word "scripting" were not
resolved to his web site of scripting.com. My past story from that time,
(
http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/article.php/2166461 ) Netscape
Smart Browsing Available, Debated, explains the situation in more
detail.
Today, it's Internet Explorer that dominates the browser marketshare.
IE has its own
(http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/article.php/2164691 )
mechanisms for dealing with bad domains or when a particular page no
longer exists (my past story
(http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/article.php/2164691 ) Searching
& Navigating Via Internet Explorer covers this, though the RealNames
system no longer operates). If anyone is being "robbed" by VeriSign,
it's Microsoft -- yet Microsoft itself has come under accusations of
somehow robbing people of traffic because of its own resolution
systems.
In general, the main concern shouldn't be on who owns the traffic but
whether the user experience is being improved. VeriSign argues that it
is.
"Like many registries, we are continually exploring how to enhance the
internet user experience, and Site Finder does that for millions of
users each day. And it reintroduces consistency into the mistyped domain
name experience, since Site Finder is implemented uniformly regardless
of the particular application," said Christopher Parente, senior manager
of naming and directory services with VeriSign.
I've been generally impressed with how Internet Explorer handles
things. It remains to be seen whether VeriSign will live up to or exceed
that standard. To get an early measure, I tried a few queries:
wwwww.amazon.com: (
http://search.msn.com/dnserror.aspx?FORM=DNSAS&q=wwwww.amazon.com )
MSN failed but ( http://sitefinder.verisign.com/lpc?url=wwwww.amazon.com
) VeriSign
succeeded in suggesting www.amazon.com as a useful
alternativewww.serchenginewatch.com:
Both (
http://search.msn.com/dnserror.aspx?FORM=DNSAS&q=www.serchenginewatch.com
) MSN
and ( http://sitefinder.verisign.com/lpc?url=www.serchenginewatch.com )
VeriSign succeeded in suggesting www.searchenginewatch.com as a useful
alternativeggoogle.com: Both (
http://search.msn.com/dnserror.aspx?FORM=DNSAS&q=ggoogle.com ) MSN and
(http://sitefinder.verisign.com/lpc?url=ggoogle.com ) VeriSign succeeded
in listing www.google.com as a useful alternative wwww.quicken.com:
Both (
http://search.msn.com/dnserror.aspx?FORM=DNSAS&q=wwww.quicken.com ) MSN
and (
http://sitefinder.verisign.com/lpc?url=wwww.quicken.com ) VeriSign
listed the
www.quicken.com site as a useful alternative
Overall, VeriSign certainly appears no worse than what MSN was
offering. My main disagreement is that the alternative addresses,
presented under the "Did You Mean" heading, appear only after you see a
search box. The same is true with MSN. In both cases, it would be better
to flip-flop the order.
I do dislike that the VeriSign service feels more commercial than what
MSN does. The VeriSign error page offers a "Search Popular Categories"
option. Since it was navigational request that originally generated the
page, rather than a search request, offering this type of suggestive
sell to browse paid listings from Overture feels exploitive rather than
useful.
While the user experience remains a main concern, the VeriSign move
also has raised some other issues, in particular whether the change will
have an impact on other internet aspects, such as how mail gets resolved
and security issues. You can find a rundown about these issues in some
of the stories below. The first two have some reaction from AOL and MSN,
and the last ones touch on implementation issues.
(
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/aptech_story.asp?category=1700&slug=Internet
Typos ) Service finds Web sites even if mistyped, AP (
http://www.iht.com/articles/110084.html ) A wave of Web profits in
guiding lost surfers, New York Times (
http://news.com.com/2100-1032-5077530.html ) VeriSign redirects error
pages, News.com ( http://www.betanews.com/article.php3?sid=1063691303 )
VeriSign Hijacks Unused Domains, BetaNews, BetaNews (
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/16/0034210&mode=thread&tid=126&tid=95&tid=98&tid=99
) Resolving Everything: VeriSign Adds Wildcards, Slashdot
(http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,60473,00.html ) ISC to
Cut Off Site Finder, Wired (
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19860-2003Sep16.html )
Software
Aimed at Blocking VeriSign's Search Program, AP
Ultimately, it will be interesting to see how MSN and AOL respond. My
assumption is that both parties might be able to configure their systems
to avoid the new VeriSign errors pages, if they so choose.
I asked MSN if Microsoft could override what VeriSign but didn't get a
response to the question. Instead, MSN offered a general comment on the
situation.
"MSN remains 100 percent committed to providing our customers with the
most relevant search results. VeriSign's decision to redirect traffic
from misspelled queries isn't of great concern to us, because the amount
of traffic driven to MSN search through misspelled queries is
insignificant. We are also focused on generating traffic from satisfied
and repeat consumers rather than counting on mistyped query traffic,"
said MSN product manager Karen Redetzki.
A (
http://searchenginewatch.com/_subscribers/articles/article.php/3078301
) longer,
more detailed version of this article is
available to Search Engine Watch members.
(
http://searchenginewatch.com/benefits/article.php?source=0309-verisign
) Click here to
learn more about becoming a member