I just took a closer look at GIDSearch and there are 2 things I didn't really like.

1) the resluts use a redirect url. Nothing wrong with that, but there is no privacy policy (yet?).
I think I know JdS isn't going to report if I click some 'strange' url, but with a redirect, that might log things, a policy must be there on what it does.

2) again about the redirect script. Searches seem to be logged and an url is based on a search id, for me no problem, but it would be nice if this logging would be noticed somewhere. also the url is like 2001-1, which I thought was the first result. but I also saw url's like 2001-36 as first result.
is that for a special reason? like paid entries, maybe?

also something for the look, it would be nice it there would be a < PREV 1 2 3 NEXT >.
it could be useful if you saw something on page 2, but you are already at page 5. you can then go back with a single click.

logging searches for abuse is fine, but for urls.. I'm not sure if people would like that

comments welcome

I get the feeling that JDS will only track the links to the people that are supposed to be paying him for the links and when he gets a proper backfill they will be clear of javascript or anything like that. A policy to clarify it all will make sense though and I encourage JDS to do that.

Rob

Thank you for your comments Allowee.

Absolutely no personally identifiable user data is collected on gsearch. The redirection script r.php is no different than the common adclick.php that everyone else uses to track clicks, i.e. it just updates a counter to record the click and to ensure that it's actually a person doing the clicking and not a bot/script running wild on the SERPs.

No where on the site does it require you to register on gsearch, so there is no way it can connect you (as an individual) to what you've searched and clicked on. Even your IP is not connected to the searches you've done, beyond a set number of minutes (for caching purposes).

I certainly don't appreciate other search engines keeping tabs on what I personally search for on their sites, so I am the last person on earth who would like to gather such information off my own little search engine.

In plain English, at the end of the day, the only aggregate data I can review from this search engine is to find out just how many times the search phrase "web hosting" for example, was searched during the day. It cannot show me who or which IP searched for the phrase, today or ever.

Despite this, I also agree that a Privacy Policy is required and that will be done as soon as I am done with the rest of the site.

To add to your comments that were not addressed in my last reply. The site is NOT complete at the moment. It's only phase 1 of many more phases to complete. So nothing is set in stone, expect things to change... sometimes even drastically (especially with layout and new functionality).

The redirect variables are simply an in-house record id thingy - since these results (XML feeds) are grabbed on the fly and off MULTIPLE providers; so record No. 1 may just happen to be the first record off the first XML feed, the script processes!

The "20xx" bit in the redirect variable is simply a running counter of the number of unique searches done since the site went live. Don't be impressed by the 2000 odd searches in such a short time, I am certain that between Googlebot, Yahoo Slurp and MSNBot, they've searched on gsearch at least 1,999 times since the site was soft launched.

Any news as of late?

Personally I've been as busy as hell, but let us all know if you've had the time

Rob

I am working on the third version of my search engine So that's still R&D at this stage...

re: the WWW search - I never did tell you this but I did infact contact the person from LookSmart. We spoke on the phone a while back and he referred me to the person in charge who just happened to contact me for the first time last Friday! I replied yesterday, so I am waiting for their decision. ...am crossing my fingers!

That's great!

PM me with the details