IndustryHow HotBot Works

How HotBot Works

Explanation of how the HotBot search engine works, for Search Engine Watch members

Recent Articles

The articles below have information not yet added to this page. Please review them to find out about any new developments. Further below, you will also find a list of other articles about this search engine that may be of interest.

  • This page is current. See below for past articles.

Sponsored Links

Paid “Sponsored Links” listings appear at HotBot just as they do at Lycos, so see the How Lycos Works page to understand more about them.

Web Results

HotBot, which is owned by Terra Lycos, doesn’t gather its own editorial or “free” listings. Instead, the editorial listings that it shows under the “Web Results” heading come from one of four partner search engines.

By default, it is “HotBot” results that users will be shown. These have traditionally come from the Inktomi search engine, owned by Yahoo. Yahoo closed the Inktomi search engine in early 2004. However, results don’t yet appear to be coming from Yahoo. Instead, it appears that Yahoo is still providing Inktomi results to HotBot.

Searchers can override the default HotBot choice by pushing one of the other buttons offered under the search box. These are:

  • Lycos: Brings back web results from the Lycos search engine
  • Google: Brings back web results from Google
  • Ask Jeeves: Brings back web results from Ask Jeeves, which themselves come from Ask Jeeves-owned Teoma

To appear in HotBot’s Web Results section, you need to be listed in the editorial web results from one of the four partners it provides access to. The pages below provide more information about each of these:

HotBot Outside The US

The information above is only for the HotBot site aimed at US and global users. A variety of country-specific HotBot sites are also operated in Europe. A full list of the European HotBot sites can be found below.

HotBot European Sites
http://www.hotbot.com/international.asp

The sites are owned by Lycos Europe. Terra Lycos, which owns the HotBot site in the US, has a large stake in Lycos Europe. However, Lycos Europe operates as a separate company and makes its own decisions on how to run its search properties. This is why the sites operate much differently from the US HotBot site. Search Engine Watch does not currently provide ongoing coverage about them.

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