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Is It Really A9 Out Of 10? 
By Ross Dunn, CEO, StepForth Search Engine Placement Inc. 

Personalization, the search engine buzzword of the year! Every 
major search engine with public goals has noted that some form 
of personalization will be implemented into future versions of 
their engines. 

What is personalization? It is a buzzword so there are many 
visions of this definition; however, in my opinion a large 
part of personalization is factoring a user's previous searches 
to ultimately tailor its results to create a better search 
experience. There are, of course, many glitzy addons like the 
ability to customize the look and feel of a search engine but 
those are far from news worthy. In today's news, however, 
Amazon.com has just launched a new search engine called A9 
which provides a more personalized search experience. Lets see 
just how personalized this service is.  

A9 Requirements 

For basic use the search engine does not have any requirements; 
however, many of the personalization features do require that 
the A9 Toolbar be installed. The toolbar offers many of the 
tools that toolbar afficionados are used to seeing: search bar, 
keyword highlighting, site search, and popup blocking. The 
toolbar also offers Alexa web site popularity data attributed to 
the visiting site by clicking on the 'Site Info' button. Alexa 
ratings are of some interest but the only data that I find 
useful is the  "People who visited this site also visit" web 
site list. That said I don't think I would ever use this tool, 
however, it does offer some interesting options for relational 
web searching when a user is conducting targeted data mining (if 
you find a site that doesn't quite meet your needs, use this 
tool to find similar sites and hunt down your answer).  

A9 Home Page Review 

A9's design is definitely in keeping with the trends of the 
clean, down-to-business interface; it offers little more than a 
search bar along with "Home Page Tools" awaiting your historical 
search results. The design is reasonably attractive and none of 
the buttons appear to be superfluous. Here is a rundown of what 
each tool bar offers: 

- History Tool 
Similar to the History bar within Internet Explorer, this tool 
differentiates itself by offering a listing of previous searches 
rather than pages. Loaded by default, the history tab shows 
recent sites visited and further breaks down into hierarchical 
folders historical data spans more than 24 hrs. 

My Take: This is a great tool for the disabled (if the site 
were actually accessible) because it reduces the need for 
retyping search queries. Unfortunately the negatives seem to 
outweigh the positives considering that the history is there for 
anyone to see including the easily offended... not to mention 
children... a serious issue at Internet Cafes where users are 
not necessarily reputable. Users will have to remember to "Sign 
Out" which I am guessing will not be a natural concept for most 
search engine users. 

 - Bookmarks Tool 
This tool is not functional unless the user installs the A9 
toolbar. Once it is installed it acts as an online version of 
your browser shortcuts similar to the free service offered by 
Backflip.com.  

- Discover Tool 
This tool provides differing methods of search based on search 
history. It's the closest that A9 comes to true personalization 
by providing a combined list of web sites and directories based 
on previous searches in the following manner: "Related 
Websites", "Categories", "Frequently Visited Sites" and "Movers 
and Shakers" which are sites experiencing the most growth 
according to Alexa's data. Essentially the home page is designed 
to be a true launching platform for various types of search 
without the tired secondary search options such as a directory 
or an alphabetical interface.  

A9 Result Page Review 

The results on A9 have been "enhanced by Google" but after some 
extensive search testing it is obvious that A9 is merely a 
technology-laden jacket for Google results. That said, the 
jacket is extremely well designed and, short of one significant, 
flaw, I believe these result pages will put A9 on the map as a 
major player; especially if they begin to use unique search 
engine results. 

What is the flaw? This is a big one that is sure to raise the 
ire of many people! First users will experience a default results 
page that has text results in one column and image results in 
thumbnail format in the right column. As a result, any user 
first searching the site, including children, will immediately 
have only moderately censored image results appearing directly 
beside their text results. These image results are provided by 
Google Images and as with any search there is a very real chance 
that highly explicit adult content will make it into an otherwise 
innocent search result. 

Take the phrase "live video" for example, the text results for 
this phrase are up to Google's high quality, however, at least 
one of the first 10 image results shows a naked 'teen'. Not 
exactly something that will endear A9 to parents. The issue is 
a simple one to fix for A9; just change the default search 
filter setting for first users to "Strict" which filters out 
"both explicit text and explicit images". 

Ultimately the results page has a considerable number of clever 
integrated technologies such as related books, movies, and 
reference. I urge you to check out this service, judge it for 
yourself and send us your feedback on this new engine. Please 
send your feedback to ross@stepforth.com.  

In Summary 

A9 may not be a 9 out of 10 but it is one of the most 
impressive leaps in personalization to date. In fact, other 
than the significant censorship issue and its distinct lack 
of accessibility (disabled access - see YouSearched.com for 
accessible search), I find the layout of A9 result pages 
intuitive and informative. Just don't surf it with your 
children until you have it properly configured.  

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Ross Dunn is the CEO of StepForth Placement Inc. 
(http://www.stepforth.com/), a search engine marketing company 
founded in 1997 and based in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. 
StepForth provides cutting-edge search engine optimization 
services that provide highly successful, targeted results for 
its clientele. Ross Dunn is a Certified Internet Marketing and 
Business Strategist (CIMBS) with a background in web design and 
online marketing. His broad Internet experience in combination 
with a talented staff has made StepForth a name synonymous with 
top results. 
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