Online Inc. B ack in the dim, distant past of Web searching, HotBot reigned supreme as the search engine of choice for scripted power searching features. In one of its earliest incarnations, the searcher could choose which options of the HotBot search form should display. Saving these settings on the searcher's computer in the cookies file meant that each time the searcher revisited HotBot, the favorite search options would appear. Since that time, several years ago, none of the search engines has offered any ability to customize or personalize search settings. But that is changing, as the summer of 2000 witnessed several search engines suddenly offering such settings.
Searchers now have more options and settings available for a variety of search and display features.
The ability to customize a Web page is not new. There is a My Yahoo, My Netscape, My iWon, and the My Excite Start Page. Several libraries even offer a customizable My Library page. Typically these services are relatively easy to use, and making changes requires only a few clicks. But the Web search engines have been remarkably devoid of these customization options since HotBot's vanished years ago.