Search History Goes Mainstream

A9's original idea, keeping and saving your search history, is being copied. Both Google and Yahoo have announced their own versions in the last week. Like A9, you'll need to create an account, then the service will allow you to start saving your searches. Links: A9, Yahoo My Web beta, Google My Search History beta.

I assume that Ask.com and MSN will be announcing their versions soon, just like they did with desktop seach.

Yahoo and Google have added an interesting twist to the feature. With the integration of desktop search and search history, they both let you store the pages you view. So, even if the page changes, you still have the old version handy. It seems to me, if the Wayback Machine were more reliable, quicker to archive and had a good search feature, these features would be moot.

I have to admit that I've always wondered about search history. It is a lot of computing power and storage for a feature that I need only occasionally at best. I'm not sure search history will ever be profitable. But I guess the game here, like in the bubble days, is to get customers at any cost -- and the way to do that is to have more and better features.