FAST has unveiled several new features for their AlltheWeb.com search engine. New features include automatic language mapping, browser integration shortcuts, Boolean search, and an enhanced query language guide.

Major points from the announcement:

Automatic Language Mapping

For users of AlltheWeb's web search and news search, the country a user is from is now determined and AlltheWeb will provide results in the user's local language and in English. Users can override the default language by selecting from the 49 languages available through customized settings.

To change your default language settings, look under the search field for the text that reads "Results in:". Clicking the language that is currently displayed will take you to a customization page where you will find "Preferred Language(s)". From here you can choose the languages that you want set as your default. For example, choose English, French, and German. Then scroll to the bottom and select "Save and Apply Settings." This will bring you back to AlltheWeb's home page and the "Results in:" area will show your newly selected default languages.

Search Tools

AlltheWeb is now providing users new search tools that can be installed into Web browsers. Once enabled, searches of AlltheWeb can be performed by typing "atw" and a search term directly into the browser's address bar. For example, by entering "atw antique furniture" into the address bar, search results will be delivered directly to the browser without first having to visit AlltheWeb.

Additonally, a search for specific terms on a Web page can be performed by highlighting the term and clicking on the "Search AlltheWeb" button located in the Links menu of the browser.

While testing the search tools I found they work with the "default catalog" settings that are available. For example, if you frequently use AlltheWebs "News" search to find articles, you can change your Default Search Catalog from "Web pages" to "News". Then, when you type "atw search term", your results will be from the news index. The same holds true if you highlight a term and click on the "Search AlltheWeb" button located in the Links menu of the browser.

AlltheWeb does not collect any data about sites visited by users of the search tools.

To install the search tools, go to http://www.alltheweb.com/help/tools/ and select the browser you use. This will take you to a page with instructions on how to install the search tools. Currently Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape, Apple Sherlock 3, Mozilla, and Opera are supported.

Boolean Search

Boolean operators can now be utilized when performing a search on AlltheWeb. Full support of common operators ("and", "or", "andnot") are included. Users will also be able to give preference to pages including a specified term by using AlltheWeb's "rank" operator.

Query Language Guide

A new query language guide is available to show users how to use advanced features such as "+" and "-", Boolean operators, and special query keywords such as "site:" and "filetype:".
The query language guide can be found at: http://www.alltheweb.com/help/faqs/query_language.html