Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Blekko search uses slashtags to produce more relevant results

In a web overrun with spam, Blekko is a browser that promises to fight back. Blekko officially opened Monday with a community beta. The Internet search company states to offer higher quality results by filtering out sites that seek to draw traffic with keywords surrounded by junk content. Blekko slashtags also allow users to create vertical search engines that deliver results about specific topics.

How to use Blekko slashtags

Sometimes, search engine results are messed up by content farms. That is what Blekko is intending to get rid of. The approach called "slashtags" is what the Blekko founders have been working on for three years in secret. Searches become more fine-tuned with slashtags. This will make it so less garbage shows up in a search with more appropriate information. The slashtag directs Blekko to provide results only from websites that match the slashtag. Climate related in global warming show up when searching "global warming/climate." This is how Blekko slashtags work. "Climate" is the slashtag getting used. Do you would like to search on Blekko conservative points of views? Type in "global warming/conservative" as your search. Do you would like more recent info about climate related global warming issues? Just type in "global warming/climate/date" to get your answers.

The improvement of Blekko slashtags

Areas like health, recipes, autos, hotels, song lyrics, personal finance and colleges are all areas that Blekko things has lots of junk in them, which is where edited results come from. Blekko also provides pre-selected slashtags for various topics that streamline the search for users. Blekko has been refining its search formula with 8,000 beta testers who have sifted through web sites to compile a list of more than 3,000 slashtags. Slashtag feedback is accessible for users to share with the Blekko slashtag editors.

Humans will be an element of Blekko searches

According to Claire Cain Miller at the New York Times, Blekko’s results could be more useful than Google’s. Only one match between the websites in Miller's search was cdc.gov which is the CDC and Prevention. Miller searched "pregnancy tips". The top 10 on Blekko integrated parenting online websites and a nonprofit group. Other government sites were brought up as well. Google had OfficialDatingResource.com as a top 10 choice. That doesn't go. A Blekko founder told the Times that it is difficult for Google’s algorithms to tell whether 2 articles on the very same topic are generated by a content farm or written by an expert. Blekko is trying to add humans to the equation.

Citations

New York Times

nytimes.com/2010/11/01/technology/01search.html?_r=2&ref=business

Search engine Land

searchengineland.com/blekko-the-slashtag-search-engine-goes-live-54447

Mashable

mashable.com/2010/09/09/blekko/



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