Wikia - an alternative search engine to Google - launches

posted on 8 January 2008 | posted in Search Engines

The Wikia search engine is now live for the public to try out.

I've just tried it out searching for "puresilva" (our website template) and it allows you to write a "mini article" concerning the particular search phrase you used. Not only that, there are open discussion forums (Wikipedia style) that allow a community to discuss particular search phrases.

So if you entered "hotels in Northampton", you'd get your search results, possibly a "mini article" (if one has been written) AND you can browse any discussion that may have been started regarding the phrase "hotels in Northampton". This could be interesting if these articles and discussions foster genuine input and help; of course it's open to abuse and just clicking on "mini article" (to add my own), I'm presented with many warnings that I'm not to abuse this facility or I'll be banned.

An alternative and popular search engine would be good for searchers and website owners alike. All the major search engines are almost entirely automated and an alternative that is popular (key point) would turn more website owners away from trying to game search engines (through link building and on page optimization) and instead focus more on the quality of content on their sites. That's the theory - but knowing how aggressive search engine marketing is at the moment, Wikia needs to get around the abuse aspect.

From Businessweek.com (full article here):-

"Wikia Search has been generating buzz for months, and may draw enthusiastic participation early on, according to industry analysts and observers. The challenge will be getting early adopters to return, and bring their friends. "You can look at a lot of these different services: They're announced, they spike, they get a lot of attention in blogs and publications," says Tom McGovern, chief executive of search engine Snap.com. "But then you get into the marketing problem of convincing that person to come back two days from now and do another search.""


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