Just wondering what people are using for searching? I realise everyone
probably uses google, but I want other options as google's search
algorithms don't necessarily find information if it isn't that popular.
I'm mainly after a good multi-threaded search engine as that way I get a
good set of results using different ranking algorithms.
http://www.myriadsearch.com/
Below [story] snip>
But what really sets Myriad Search apart from other meta search
engines is the ability to skew results by adding or subtracting "bias"
values that will cause a results from a particular engine to become
more or less important in the overall mix.
This means that if you can override the usual ranking algorithms used
by meta search engines by boosting your favorites and demoting those
you like less. For example, you could boost Ask Jeeves' bias ranking
to +5, leave MSN Search and Yahoo at 0 and demote Yahoo by -3 (or any
other number between 0 and 5). Your results will now skew more toward
the top ranked results in Ask Jeeves and away from those in Yahoo."
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3550681
Myriad Search: Meta Search Your Way
By Chris Sherman, Associate Editor
September 22, 2005
A new meta search engine allows you to compare results from the four
top web search engines, and tweak their relative importance in the mix
by adding to or subtracting from the relative importance of each.
Myriad Search is a brand-new and relatively untested meta search
engine designed primarily to help search engine optimizers with
competitive intelligence research on keywords. Want to know which
competitor is ranking well on specific keywords? Myriad Search will
show you, presenting search results with their relative rankings from
Ask Jeeves, Google, MSN Search and Yahoo.
While this is similar to what you'd see with Dogpile, Clusty or other
meta search engines, Myriad Search also displays the result
description or snippet for each page found, making it easy to see how
each engine presents a particular web page.
For example, Google typically displays snippets of text extracted from
a web page, while Yahoo or MSN may pull descriptions from meta tag
information or directory listings. Until now, you've had to check each
engine separately to do this type of comparison.
In addition to the multiple descriptions, Myriad Search also sums up
the "authority" value of a web page as determined by its position in
all of the search engines. By default, #1 ranking pages get a score of
10; if all four search engines checked by Myriad Search return #1
rankings for a page it gets a score of 40, and an authority value of
100%. This simple math offers an interesting perspective on the
relative importance that search engines assign to web pages.
But what really sets Myriad Search apart from other meta search
engines is the ability to skew results by adding or subtracting "bias"
values that will cause a results from a particular engine to become
more or less important in the overall mix.
This means that if you can override the usual ranking algorithms used
by meta search engines by boosting your favorites and demoting those
you like less. For example, you could boost Ask Jeeves' bias ranking
to +5, leave MSN Search and Yahoo at 0 and demote Yahoo by -3 (or any
other number between 0 and 5). Your results will now skew more toward
the top ranked results in Ask Jeeves and away from those in Yahoo.
It takes a bit of playing around with this feature to really
understand what's going on. And while it offers a degree of control
over search results not readily found elsewhere, that control and the
subsequent measure of "authority" is largely an illusion based on the
current state of each search engine's relevancy algorithms.
Why? Search engines are constantly tweaking the way they measure
relevancy. What's considered authoritative today may not be tomorrow,
especially if spammers have figured out a way to game a particular
search engine's results.
[...]
Myriad Search also claims to report total numbers of results returned
by each engine for your query. While the numbers are generally
accurate compared to what MSN and Ask Jeeves report on their own
sites, the numbers returned by Myriad Search for Google and Yahoo
aren't even close to what the services report when you search directly
on their home pages.
Myriad Search is an interesting tool, and is fun to play around with.
It's likely much more useful for search marketers than as a Dogpile or
Clusty replacement for searchers. More information about the service
can be found in the Myriad Search FAQ:
http://tools.seobook.com/authority-finder/
[end]
Good search engine resource:
http://searchenginewatch.com/links/article.php/2156241
(test drive whatever peaks your interest)
