Yeah, that was lame. Also, the reason that A9's ranked so low is because it sucks in so many ways:

1. Search pages are a dizzying array of flashing neon & popups-- weren't popups so hated they quickly became passé? This is the new technology they crow about?

2. Speaking of technology, i beta-tested the A9 toolbar many months ago and ended up removing it for a number of bugs. Funny, i just visited the site again because of this article, and received a page greeting me by first & last name, and a bunch of links i did research on almost a year ago-- the time i uninstalled the toolbar.

3. They place pay-for placement links above the search results... slightly separated...BUT WORSE...

4. The first ranked search result(NOT the pay-for-place ads above), is nothing more than one of those fake search engine sites that is just full of unrelated ad referrals: the type where if you search for say, tsumani: there's all kinds of links stating: "tsunamis on sale-- 2 for the price of one", "click here to download tsunamis"....
Speaking of download: if you search for software-- say, something like Irfanview: the first-ranked download site presented(not the pay-for-placement sites above) is usually a site that does not have software-- you will be presented often with a page containing a plain text line:"click here to download Irfan" , but it's just text and not a link-- and the rest of the page will be just a bomabardment of flash ad boxes & popups-- they're hoping you click & think another page will appear soon(never actually, because it's just plain text underlined to make it look like a link), and in the meantime click on some tantalizing ad...

The next-ranked site will actually host software for download, but here's what they do:

you click the download link & miracle of miracles, it works! It's not just a plain text trap you think to yourself-- until you see the page loading: a similar neon ad bombbardment, and in big red letters: IRfan Download............(just like that, no link to click, the line of periods infers you should wait for the download file to appear momentarily.. but it never does(this is done purposefully, it's not a glitch), they're hoping that you'll be distracted by one of the 100!! and some other links on that page. After waiting some moments & the download does not materialize, you notice finally a gray-background box full of purple & darker gray text ads, & camouflaged in between them in red & gray tiny print: "if the download hasn't already started, click here to download again...." What a sly choice of words!!!! Makes you think that the fault is yours, the program already downloaded & you just plain missed it/lost it .....

And that's why this WCFields engine is ranked so low, folks-- we're not lamer suckers!!!

Score: 0