There's bumper activity in the search engine industry this week with articles popping up everywhere. One would almost think there's been a large gathering going on.

• Google co-founder Sergey Brin says he never imagined how popular and widespread his search engine would become - Google Wild About Commoditizing Search.
• Today’s search environment enables multiple paid results from multiple providers for the same query to appear on the top five search sites. Is there such a thing as too much of a good thing? - Interpreting the Redundancy Nightmare.
• Search Engine Marketing Professional Organisation (SEMPO) launches.
• Online yellow pages provider Switchboard are offering to insert Web site links on their own listings or on non-commercial listings - Switchboard Rolls Out Paid Link Program.

On the New Zealand domain registration scene there's bound to be some interesting activity today at 11am NZST when the .geek.co.nz second level domain goes live for registrations. You can register a geek.co.nz domain here.

"Yahoo! Australia, search producer, Peter Crowe today revealed that the company had started testing Inktomi's search engine in parallel with projects at a number of the company's regional portals to see if it provides a viable alternative to Google's crawler-based search engine." - Yahoo! ready to ditch Google

In its quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, LookSmart said MSN recently tested a new search results layout in the United Kingdom that eliminated the directory layer of listings provided by LookSmart

"LookSmart would be crippled by the loss of its Microsoft business, which accounted for 68 percent of its revenues in the last quarter. Their contract expires on Dec. 3, 2003." - MSN Search Tests Worrisome for LookSmart

Interesting questions will be answered over the next year as the completion of the acqusition by Yahoo! of Overture takes place. In the past year Overture have acquired both AltaVista and the FAST Web Search Unit which includes AllTheWeb.

Yahoo! News have reported that Yahoo! may keep AltaVista running as a niche site servicing advanced search functions.

"We believe that the AltaVista brand is still very strong, and has come to attract a particular type of user, and it is entirely possible that we may keep the AltaVista site to serve a particular niche of users," - Phu Hoang, Yahoo's senior vice president for engineering.

This was also the function of AllTheWeb for the FAST search technologies so the question is left open whether AllTheWeb will be thrown on the scrap heap or not. To further complicate the scenario Yahoo! already own the search technology provider Inktomi which can be seen as a direct competitor to the FAST search services.

All-in-all this leaves for an interesting consolidation period in search over the next year as Yahoo! pick up the pieces.

See Yahoo! News for more information.

Overture have announced they will launch into the Australian market by the end of 2003. They have appointed a Managing Director, Mel Bohse, the previous VP of AltaVista Asia Pacific.

Having met Mel at one of the previous SES conferences in Sydney it was clear that in her role with AltaVista she was also very familiar with the New Zealand market. It will be interesting to see if this will following on with Overture Australia taking an interest in the New Zealand market as well.

See Yahoo! Financial News for more information.

Google push further into the enterprise search market by naming heavy weight companies that use its search appliance including Pfizer, the U.S. Army, and the city of San Diego.

See Cnet - Google names enterprise search clients.

Google have added an email alert function to their news service. Options include 'once a day' or 'as it happens'. Now you can add your email to what is probably the fastest growing online database of personal information - Google.com News Alerts.

Overture have announced the release later in the year of a system designed to tracking online campaigns from multiple sources (including Google). The system may well fill the gap between tracking PPC through tools like the GoToast product compared to the reasonably expensive (for an SME's) Dart system from DoubleClick.

It will be interesting to see to what level the system will provide key metrics. Web tracking products such as the New Zealand based Media Tracker may still have an edge in providing fully rounded solutions for campaign and site analysis.

See: Overture to upgrade analytics software - '[Overture] will launch a completely new system for advertisers to track multiple campaigns on any platform, which would include rival Google. That service will be rebranded and introduced in the fourth quarter of 2003. '

You have to laugh when competitors give up extolling the virtues of their own product and just start chanting 'We're better than you are!' (imagined best when picturing a pre-school child holding a bigger truck than his neighbour).

See this report published by Overture today:
AlltheWeb Rated as Better Search Experience than Google - 'Dr. Jenkins recently published two articles in which he analyzed the user experience of Google and Overture's AlltheWeb.com search engines, and proclaimed AlltheWeb the winner in both cases.'