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From
THE SEARCH ENGINE REPORT
January 3, 2001 - Number 50 - Part 1 of 2
By Danny Sullivan
Editor, Search Engine Watch
http://searchenginewatch.com/
Copyright (c) 2000 internet.com corporation
====================
HotBot Launches In Europe
Lycos Europe has quietly launched its new HotBot UK, France and German
sites in December (other European HotBot's may also be out there, but I
haven't had a chance to check). An official rollout of these is planned for
after the New Year, but you can access the Inktomi-powered sites now. I may
be taking a closer look at them soon, as part of a planned review of the
series of Lycos search and portal sites that serve various European
countries.
The launch also means that those in the UK trying to reach the US version
of HotBot at http://www.hotbot.com may find themselves automatically
redirected to the UK version (the same is probably true in France and
Germany). That's unfortunate. Lycos has employed the same type of
redirection over the past two years to force those trying to access its US
site into its European versions. As a result, it's not an uncommon
experience to discover that search pages may not load correctly, broken
links occasionally occur and other unexpected problems crop up.
Perhaps the redirection with HotBot will fare better, but I'd prefer to see
the type of system that AltaVista and others employ. If AltaVista detects
you are accessing its US site from the UK, it pops up a separate window to
remind you that a UK version exists, rather than forcing you to the UK
site.
HotBot
http://www.hotbot.lycos.co.uk
HotBot France
http://www.hotbot.lycos.fr/
HotBot Germany
http://www.hotbot.lycos.de/
HotBot US
http://hotbot.lycos.com/
If you want to reach HotBot US from abroad, enter the URL above rather than
http://www.hotbot.com, and you can access the service.
HotBot US Mail
http://members.hotbot.lycos.com/
Should you have mail through HotBot US, the URL above will continue to
provide you access.
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