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12/17/2001 Entry: "17-Dec-2001 -- Google Catalog Search"

Google Catalog Search -- "Our exclusive Google Catalog Search includes the full content of hundreds of mail-order catalogs selling everything from industrial adhesives to clothing and home furnishings."

Replies: 3 comments

I gave it a test run... found it tremendously non-useful. I pity the 87% of Americans on slow modem connections who will find the experience grindingly slow, in addition to its lack of usefulness.

Posted by JS @ 12/18/2001 09:41 AM EST

I thought so too until I tried searching. Search for something, anything and you'll quickly get a chill up your spine. The browsing is neat because you don't have to subscribe to a bunch of catalogs and you get exposure to catalogs you might not normally come across.

The fine folks at Google have indexed every catalog and their search results show the front page of a catalog match, a picture of the individual page match, and then a subset of that individual page with the search terms highlighted IN THE IMAGE ITSELF.

I'm not entirely sure how they do that but DAMN it is cool!

Posted by bbrown @ 12/18/2001 10:36 AM EST

I guess I was disappointed because the catalogs I use were not included in Googles' database.

In that respect, Google's website search was a much more effective option because it quickly found the web versions of the print catalogs I was looking for.

I would much rather see Google offer a news site-only search. (Placing news links at the top of search results isn't enough. I'd prefer a search that only returns news links.) But then, I've already given Google enough free ideas, and never got the free t-shirt they promised. *whimper*

Posted by JS @ 12/18/2001 11:22 AM EST

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