THE CURRENT VERSION IS SEY 2003

(2003 Overview)

Excite URL's

Search URL: http://www.excite.com/
Submission URL: Submit your site to Google to have it show up in Excite.

The Company

Excite is one of the oldest search engines around and was at one stage considered among the best. The focus gradually shifted, from a pure search engine to a portal site offering e-mail, shopping etc. Web search became just another one of many attractions offered at Excite. This shift in focus was compounded with the 2001 acquisition of Excite by InfoSpace.

In my opinion, Excite is in serious danger of disappearing quietly. It remains – for now – on my “Major Search Engines” list because it is still a fairly popular web destination.

Excite Web Search

The most significant change at Excite is that its search engine is now (almost) a pure meta search engine.

They no longer maintain their own general database. The only database they do maintain is of sites that participate in their “Guaranteed Inclusion” program. The value of that program seems questionable. It makes more sense to get guaranteed inclusion through Overture, which is one of the sources of Excite search results. Better yet, a Google listing will also get your site in front of Excite users.

Excite currently receives search results from:
Google, LookSmart, Inktomi, Ask Jeeves, About, Overture, FindWhat and Fast.

I will keep an eye on Excite and report on changes and developments in my EnginePaper Newsletter. If you’re not a subscriber yet, you’re missing out. Get onboard. Subscription is free. Send a blank e-mail to: send -ep-subscribe@topica.com.

(2002 Overview)

URL's

Search URL: http://www.excite.com/
Advanced Search: ?
Submission URL: Submit your site to Overture to have it show up in Excite.
Contact URL: http://www1.excite.com/home/companyinfo_excite/about_excite/0,20394,,00.html
Physical address: ?
Phone number: ?

Notes on Excite

Interesting developments at Excite...

@Home have entered into an agreement with InfoSpace Inc. to sell them certain Excite domain names, trademarks and traffic. The agreement does not extend to physical assets. @Home will move its focus to broadband products and services. These are BIG changes!

What will happen to the Excite search engine?

From the looks of it, the Excite search engine will remain with us, but in a slightly different form. At the time of writing, InfoSpace just took over the site. In a press release they assured Excite users that they're working hard and fast to make the transition as smooth as the can.

A new focus for Excite... Perhaps not that new…

The combination of free e-mail, a customizable start page and search functionality was, in my opinion, always Excite's best asset. As a pure search engine, Excite has not been that competitive over the last 2 years.

It seems the folks at InfoSpace agree. Today (December 29, 2001), they're continuing the mammoth task of moving 200 million e-mail folders. Here's an extract from the news update published on their site:

We made significant progress yesterday and will continue this process both today and over the weekend. However, we've been through this before, and we're experienced enough to know that things will be a little buggy out of the gates. Within a handful of days, we will have the system fully stabilized, and you should have a better, more reliable email product than you have been used to. You have our commitment.

The news release also confirmed that Excite e-mail is to remain a free service:

The service itself will remain free and will launch with features such as a basic spam filter (with a more complex system coming soon), forwarding capabilities and an enhanced address book.

I will keep a close eye on Excite and report on changes and developments in our free EnginePaper Newsletter. If you're not a subscriber yet, you're missing out. It's free. Get onboard.

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