Test your Alternative Search Engine knowledge!
Here are six brief descriptions of alt search engines. Below them are their six logos, but not in the same order. Print this page and write in the correct letter for each alt. See the answers Monday!
Here are the Answers:
1. yubnub is a command-line for the web, you can make a new command by giving yubnub an appropriate URL. On a practical note, I was tired of setting up the same FireFox keywords on each of the 5 computers that I use. By putting my keywords into yubnub, I can hit “am mark twain” for an Amazon search, or “gmap vancouver” for a Google Maps search, no matter which computer I’m on. But on a bigger scale, yubnub is the realization of a very big idea: the URL command line of the web OS.
2. sidekiq Your favorite search site may not be the best one for video, audio, social bookmarks, finance, entertainment, employment, health care, real estate & travel. Get instant results from your favorite search site + other top search sites at once. Get all the search power with no plugins/add-ons install, no activex, no headaches.
3. decipho filters search results by user preferences and tags. By doing this users have the ability to narrow keyword searches by tags given by other users and themselves. When the results come back, it only displays websites within a search that were given the tag news by other users. The Community Tags link next to the displayed search results allow users to view all of the tags given for a particular website as well as a percentage breakdown of how many times someone tagged a website a certain tag-word. At the bottom it will show the breakdown of tags used for a particular keyword search.
4. The power of Mooter is that it employs a combination of analysis methods to predict a user’s interests and intentions. These profiles can then be utilized by Mooter’s multi-dimensional targeting algorithms to select the most relevant advertisement for that user, either listings, rich media or display. It does this by using a combination of proprietary algorithms, a process known as ‘Mooterization.’
5.The results that factbites generates are still extracts from web pages, but they are of far higher quality than the summaries that main stream web search engines provide. By focusing the technology on passages that make statements about the topic being searched for, the user experiences a far richer response. It should be noted that this type of interface has the potential to change the way in which searches are performed as the search engine is now doing more of the heavy lifting and is not trying to guess the intention of the user.
6. Lurpo . When you build a CSE, you get to add a number of options to it and when you submit your CSE to our site, you still have full control over how it operates. More importantly, you can tie your CSE into your Google AdSense account and make money with it! If your CSE gets a lot of use, you could find yourself making a good bit of money from it. By submitting it to our site, your CSE will get more use and you’ll make more money. The more people that use Lurpo, the better it is for everyone!











June 10th, 2007 at 8:31 pm
I really like reading about alternative search engines. However, the amount of fluff coming out of this blog is simply annoying. It is especially noticeable when I read its feed among the other RSS feeds. If you’re going to focus on a subject, create worthwhile material once in a while, don’t flood us with large amounts of superficial content.
I think this blog is starting to suffer from the same phenomenon 24hrs news channels are suffering — they feel the need to create content rather than provide valuable information.
We’re already flooded with inordinate amounts of useless information, which is why we need good search engines: to find the pearls in a sea of rubbish.
Please stop the artificial content creation and focus on writing valuable well thought posts. I really don’t want to stop using this blog as a source of information about search engines.
June 11th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
Dear Someone,
My name is Charles Knight, the Editor of this blog. My personal email is below. Surely it’s only fair that I know your name? You can always email me directly if you don’t want to post your name, although with such a detailed comment, is it really fair to say “someone?” It’s hard to worry about folks that “post and run” - it’s just a pet peeve of mine.
Also, if you feel this blog needs better content, let’s have it! Everyone can see my “Guest Authors welcome” post, so I’m sure you’ve seen it too. I would welcome your article drafts.
Charles Knight (my real name)
Email: Charles@ReadWriteWeb.com