NBCi
As with Yahoo!, NBCi (formerly Snap.com) first offers results for a typical search from NBCi's own directory ("Top Sites"). Additional ("Web") sites follow. Other categories are the Search Marketplace, which consists of featured listings from sponsors, and Member-Submitted sites.
Marketplace hits pop up mainly on the kinds of searches that trigger targeted banner ads: Words like buy, mortgage, and golf bring up sponsor links at the top of the screen. We encountered no Member-Submitted sites.
NBCi's strongest results were in commerce, finance, and unusual phrases such as Federated States of Micronesia. Returns on technology queries, such as Hand spring, Linux Documentation Project, and Palm Pilot were mixed. Home page targeting was strong: The Linux Documentation Project was the only one NBCi failed to find.
NBCi scored fairly well on finding home pages and on simple multiword queries. Natural-language queries bombed, except when we asked a "Where can I buy. . . ?" question. One of NBCi's best return sets was on the tricky one-word query for the recently released film Quills. Answers included several movie databases, the official site, and sites related to Michael Caine, who appears in the movie
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