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Author Topic: Neeva search engine  (Read 2057 times)

ergophobe

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Neeva search engine
« on: July 03, 2020, 01:51:31 AM »
https://neeva.co/

Former Google ad boss Ramaswamy to launch new search engine Neeva
Neeva will be subscription based and won't have advertising
Quote
The first major differentiator is that it will not have advertising and be subscription-supported. It will not track users and it will be personalized. Personalization will reportedly be accomplished without data mining. Neeva has so far raised $37.5 million and has 25 employees.

https://searchengineland.com/former-google-ad-boss-ramaswamy-to-launch-new-search-engine-neeva-336200


Interview (I haven't listened to it yet)
https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/vox/recode-decode/e/73537454
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Brad

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Re: Neeva search engine
« Reply #1 on: July 03, 2020, 10:44:17 AM »
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Neeva won’t reinvent the search wheel; it will sit on top of existing content and data sources: Bing search results, Apple Maps, weather.com and other data sources. Neeva will also search personal files like email and “local” documents along with the web.

It's like DDG without the ads, except I have to pay.  That would be fine except I don't find the ads on DDG to be too intrusive.

>personalization

Privacy is still going to be an issue.  1. You have to login.  2. They have your credit card info.  3. You still end up with the filter bubble.

>Bing

IMHO you can't come up with a long term competitor to Google by retreading Bing.  Short term you could use Bing as backfill, frontfill or a blended metasearch but eventually you are going to have to build and sort your own index with a crawler.

Still it's interesting.
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ergophobe

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Re: Neeva search engine
« Reply #2 on: July 04, 2020, 04:55:29 PM »
>> sit on top of existing content and data sources

:-(

I guess it's conceivable that DDG and Neeva could get enough traction to start doing their own crawl and be a real alternative, but at that point, won't Bing cut them off?
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Brad

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Re: Neeva search engine
« Reply #3 on: July 04, 2020, 06:06:51 PM »
>> won't Bing cut them off?

The short answer is: it depends on how their contract is worded.  If you had a long term contract with Bing with no language forbidding you from making your own crawler Bing would be on the hook.  Qwant has their own crawler in French and Swiss Cows has their own crawler in German but both use Bing for English. Not quite the same thing but it does show that Bing sells to other engines that are developing their own crawlers.  In a way, Bing is like the old Inktomi, a mercenary search engine for hire.

As for DDG, I've said for years that DDG ought to be quietly developing their own crawler for general web search, but I've seen no sign of it to date and it's been long enough that I think DDG is content to stay a meta-search engine. 

I don't have a "Debbie" like RC does, but my sense is that DDG is sort of being fattened up for eventual sale to the highest bidder.  They are profitable so they are in no rush but if the right buyer came along with the right offer they'd sell.   If they were developing their own crawler it would show that they are in it for the long haul but absent that they are a proof of concept that a decent privacy metasearch engine has value and can stay in the black.
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littleman

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Re: Neeva search engine
« Reply #4 on: July 04, 2020, 08:54:39 PM »
Like Brad said, I see personalization with logins at odds with privacy.  Sure, they may not sell your data, but its all going to be there.

They sure raised a lot of money for an engine that's going to fee based and rely on other engine's data.

> won't Bing cut them off?

Crawling and building a database isn't really prohibitively expensive.  I'm wondering if what's stopping companies from doing it is the patents Google and MS hold and possible litigation if they start using PR type algos on their results?  That would be a very sad reason.
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BoL

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Re: Neeva search engine
« Reply #5 on: July 05, 2020, 10:18:36 AM »
>DDG contract

They moved their servers from Amazon to Microsoft in the past 10 days. Reckon that they get their Bing API data for free rather than $3/1K and the tie in will be ever present.

>Crawling and building a database isn't really prohibitively expensive

I've seen an estimate that reckons a true competitor to Google would have to invest around ~£22 billion to do so. Still, lots of upside.
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Brad

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Re: Neeva search engine
« Reply #6 on: July 05, 2020, 11:36:42 AM »
> upside

I would imagine that, as each year goes by, the pressure for real competitors with their own indexes, builds. 

> Neeva

I get the feeling that the people behind Neeva think the public has become so used to the subscription model (Netflix, Britbox, HBO, music etc.) that they think the time is ripe for trying out a subscription model search engine.  I have to admit I'm skeptical.
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BoL

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Re: Neeva search engine
« Reply #7 on: July 09, 2020, 10:38:16 AM »
Another one that might be of interest https://www.runnaroo.com/

Must be using Google's custom search
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rcjordan

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Re: Neeva search engine
« Reply #8 on: October 05, 2022, 06:59:02 PM »
Neeva launches in the UK, France and Germany on Thursday.
Neeva has 600,000 users in the US, where it launched last year.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-63130364
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rcjordan

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Re: Neeva search engine
« Reply #9 on: October 11, 2022, 03:06:19 PM »
7 Reasons You Shouldn't Use Neeva, the New "Tracker-Free" Search Engine

https://www.makeuseof.com/reasons-you-shouldnt-use-neeva/
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Brad

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Re: Neeva search engine
« Reply #10 on: October 11, 2022, 05:35:01 PM »
> Shouldn't Use Neeva

I've never used it.  Registration and eventually pay with cc. are big red flags for a SE that has a very small index of their own blended with Bing.  Sorry but DDG is free.  Mojeek is free and does not keep data on you.

Has anyone ever seen a Neevabot?  IMO it's dodgy.
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