NowBot - Web Search

Your engine is clean, & well laid out but IMHO there is no point in having your own search engine. I GUARANTEE NO ONE will use it, why would they ? When the best search engine technology in the world alrteady exsists ?

Apologies of Ive missed the point

Hi, James. Thanks for looking at some other sites first

The first thing I noticed about this is the fonts. There's a lot of inconsistencies here in terms of which fonts are used and how. The header, for example, with the plain serif font isn't that great looking. The "Browse the Directory" header is a problem as well - just use plain text there. NOw, the directory listings themselves are done in a nice sans. That's good. When I actually search for something I see the featured listings in a sans as well but the main listings are serif. Get the gist? Keep fonts consistent as possible. It might be best to choose an interesting specialty font for the logo and do everything else in a sans serif. Switching to CSS for all of your site formatting would be a great help.

Speaking of search listings, I did a search for one of my favourite topics: fitness. The three featured listings were junk products. That's a big turn-off for me. One of them was actually for steroids (!). The main listings were okay.

One of the things that's really bothering me about this is that it doesn't fit in my window. I browse with a window width at about 800 px (windows taskbar on the right side, opera panels on the left). It's really annoying to have to scroll all the time like that.

Sorry to be so negative about this It must have been a big undertaking for you. I was reasonably pleased with the functionality - I tried an image search and shopping search as well.

Hello, Everyone

Yes I agree, the fonts are a problem.
The logo and the other images on the site I will update soon, including the fonts used on the search result pages. In addition, I will look into CSS.

I apologize for the search results you received. Currently we are in the process of putting a search filter on NowBot.

MFDC,

I value your opinion. It's true that there are very advanced search engines on the internet. NowBot is a small scale search engine an "alternative" to those "Big Guys" (Yahoo!, Excite, etc...). To have your site listed in Yahoo! your best chance will be to pay them 300+ dollars just to have them review your suggested listing. My site offers webmasters the opportunity to have their site listed for free. I hope that people will use my site because I believe people like variety and low prices (free in this case). NowBot will also tackle areas these big search engines do not in the near future (look for updates). Sorry, for rambling like this.

every site has a chance to succeed, given the right attitude and hard work. It also doesnt have to cost a penny apart from the server costs/domain cost of course.

Your site is too wide for those of us with 800 X 600 resolution. A suggestion might be to make the page so that it stretches to fit any screen resolution.

By the way, I'm sure that over time you will be able to get considerably more people than "NO ONE" to use your site. Good job.

The site seems to contridict it's self... the logo suggests the site is a happy fun site, but the graphic to the left of it and stock checking stuff makes it seem serious... you need to decide on an angle and stick with it.

Quote:
My site offers webmasters the opportunity to have their site listed for free. I hope that people will use my site because I believe people like variety and low prices (free in this case).

The biggest challenge you'll face is getting people to actually search using your site. At the moment your business plan seems fundamentally flawed, webmasters will not sign-up to your search engine unless there are people using it to search, it's simply not worth their time. Although I do appreciate that you need content to generate search results, the question has to be raised: What is your strategy for getting people to actually use the service you've created?

The above may seem a little rude, and the intention is certainly not to detract from the hard work you've obviously invested created the service, just hoping to point out this problem so you can meet it head-on with a viable means of overcoming it.

Yes, A challenge I am facing is actually getting people to use the services provided by NowBot. After giving this issue some thought I will be releasing additional interactive features to the site such as but not limited to a personals service and an online forum. In addition, NowBot will soon have contests in order to help influence people to become involved with the site. Also there are many more ideas I am considering. If anyone has any ideas and would like to share them with me I would gladly appreciate it.

> I am still working on a logo. Thanks, to the moderator that commented on it. I agree.
> The width of the pages are being updated as well.

I like it. looks good and it's kinda easy on the easy. My only objection is that it doesn't transfer PR

Good luck,

Cheer,

StudioWorks

I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone that has replied so far and those that may reply after this post. Your comments are helping me out a lot. Thanks again.

When you click on the shopping section the blue bit the search bar is in gets taller just a little niggle but the rest is great

PS. I think its so cool that you have your own search engine

I look at this page and think, "lycos with awkward color scheme." You picked a really really bright blue for the navigation/search box. Also I'm pretty sure you stole your script from lycos or similar because your page looks identical to mine and I copied my design off of lycos. (didn't steal the code, but I copied the disign right down to the color scheme). Anyway other than that it's well layed out and has a good index. I'd suggest putting the URL's of the pages under the info about the pages.

I didn't copy any html at all. The site actually started with a very basic layout and slowly it developed to how it is now (still basic but more developed than before). I will have to admit my site and Lycos does share the same idea when it comes to the tabs. Currently the tabs are the best way so far for me to organize the different searches NowBot provides.

Yes, the search area does extend a little bit. Thank you for telling me. I will fix this ASAP.

A very big point - if you are expecting people to add their own link, cut down drastically on the number of categories available. I literally spent 20 minutes trying to work out where to post my site to.

okay

hi everyone

the most important aspect for a search site is the usability rather than the design in my opinion

think google which found simplicity was vital and overtook sites like altavista which were trying to be all to all people

on that note its clean and for the most part easy to use

id make the logo a home link. and i agree with othe people you need a new new logo. it needs more presence.

not sure i like the colour scheme, its just a but palid

the weather check doesnt specify its US till the second attempt

the

is it a wise idea to have google ads on your site

POSSIBLE BUG if you only get one result it stil lets you click page 2,3,4,5,6 links which is silly

JP

Yes, I agree it is good to have a well organised site, however could I suggest that you have a number of drop down boxes rather than just the one? For example you have a drop down box to select your country, then another to select the business type, then a further on to finally narrow down?

This would make it much simpler for the user than 8000+ options all in one drop down box. As you will see - I ended up posting my site as a middle eastern site - whoops! I posted it again, and I think I just posted it to 'M' for matchmaking? Am I correct that you have maybe 1000 options for say 'A' but only one for 'M'?

Just a thought anyway.

I made many modifications to my site in the past few weeks. The biggest would be the addition of a blog service. If anyone has the time could you please take another look at my site and tell me if you are having any problems such as the page width, colors etc...

P.S.) Somebody told me they are having a problem understanding what the main purpose of my site is quickly (as in when they first hit the main page) does anyone else experience that? How could I fix this?

Nice color theme. I think it would be harder design wise but I think it would look better if you kept the table format and displayed the search results like the main page rather then the classic interface. In any case, nice looking site. Good Luck !

I really like this website look's great. Keep up the good work when my search engine come's out maybe we can partner pm if interested.

I red the whole thread and you have had quite a work to be done but hey ive viewed your site and its Cleaner and none of the previous problem existed so Congratulations...
I agree that sooner or later people would support your site coz as far as I know, brands that are quite good but has lesser budget for advertising doesn't appear in mainstream search engine. With google being number one which is the engine being used by yahoo too.
Congrats and I hope your site will take off and be as big as them but I hope youll remain lowest priced(free) in the future...

Hello, Everyone

Thanks for all the support. I couldn't have come this far without you guys/gals. I will be sure to keep up the work