[WEB4LIB] Google and PDF

[Richard Wiggins]

Hmmm, I can't fathom why it's peculiar for Google to index PDF. 

The peculiar thing to me is that AltaVista has had the ability to index PDF and a whole bunch of other document types for years.  Their Search Intranet product does it, and we have taken advantage of it at Michigan State University for many moons.

Visit search.msu.edu and do this search:

+orcbs +"revised may 1996"

In fact, I thought the global AltaVista did so.

It is odd, and not a little frustrating, what is in the global portal and not in the intranet product -- and vice versa.  For instance, many sites could make great use of the technology that pulls up ads based on the user's search.  You could use it as a way to highlight favored, popular, or official pages first.


/rich

------Original Message------
From: Ian Winship <ian.winship at unn.ac.uk>
To: Multiple recipients of list <web4lib at webjunction.org>
Sent: February 7, 2001 4:36:26 PM GMT
Subject: [WEB4LIB] Google and PDF


Walt Crawford wrote:

> On a wildly different topic: has anyone else run into Google's new and
> slightly peculiar feature--namely, indexing PDFs?

See: Google Ventures into the Invisible Web
http://websearch.about.com/internet/websearch/library/weekly/aa013101a.htm

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Ian Winship
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Richard Wiggins
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