A graveyard search engine (hotbot.com)

Member Name: dangaroo

Product:	hotbot.com
Date:	27/05/09 (11 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Interesting screenshot feature

Disadvantages: Extremely poor

I've recently been looking to add my url to as many search engines as possible as even the slightest bit of additional traffic would probably prove worthwhile. In doing so, it's been quite an interesting journey, I see the last review of hotbot.com dates back to early 2001 and that probably tells you something. Google have such a monopoly on the search engine market, leading Yahoo and MSN that a lot of the sites have turned into virtual graveyards.

Hotbot have a funky interface and allow you the option to choose from 3 search engines - yahoo, msn and lygo.com (hotbot is after all linked to lycos), this can be done with a single click and doesn't involve having to go back or too many complications. The results are lagging behind a bit and the amount of appropriate content in relation to your search seems to be a bit of a let down.

They do implement a unique albeit fairly useless option of being able to look at a screenshot of the site you are about to view. I checked out one of my sites on there and noticed that the screenshot was of an ancient template, so it looks like they don't update this feature too often.

With paying search engines like myhpf.com and scour chasing up and in some cases including the results of bigger competitors, there's little room for this site on the market. I'm surprised they keep it running at all in fact, a once reasonably popular site looks almost completely useless these days. It may sound like Hooter's version of Betty's famous Lancashire Hotpot but it's every bit as dead as Stan Ogden.

Summary: Waste of space