[Wired4Sound]

WOW

Thats ALOT better.

How did you get it to search all search engines like Google, MSN, Alltheweb etc? Did you write that or is it a premade program.

Either way it's lightning fast...Excellent work, far better then the other one!

[Neutral]

Nice work AMJones!!
Its great! Best search engine ever!! No ads, but even if it is slow, it shows the best results. Most search engines, especially Yahoo!* tend to have innapropriate sponsors, and their sponsors ads in the

}-----------------------------------{
|         Sponsored Links           |
|                                   |
|                                   |
|                                   |
|                                   |
|                                   |
}-----------------------------------{

area are often off topic.
The beta search that you have is great!!!!!!!!

Neutral


EDIT: Sorry for my bad spelling, I will fix it.....

[AMJones]

I'm glad you like it! I definitely welcome more input. Now that this thing is working, I want to make it the best that it can be - and I can't do that without feedback from our members.

I do want to mention one thing in reponse, though. The new search engine isn't really intended to be "ad-free". During the beta period, there will be no banner ads - and if the engine meets with the success that I intend, it will stay that way.

There actually *are* sponsored links within the results, but there's a major difference between the placement of our sponsored links vs. the type of box Neutral has demonstrated in the post above: The sponsored links we're using are subject to the same relevancy tests and ranking order as the sponsored ones. I'll explain some of those ranking methods in a later post after more folks have had a chance to give their input. Suffice it to say that my main concentration here is relevancy - and I'm determined to keep the results as relevant as possible.

I'm sure that people would like to see a search engine that is 100% ad-free, but that's not terribly feasible. Just like anyone, our employees need to pay their own bills, feed their families, etc. We're not out to make millions, but we need to maintain a balanced budget. Beyond that, I truly believe that some sponsored results can actually *improve* the quality of a search engine; adding results that spidering search engines are incapable of indexing.

Within the next couple of days (hopefully after some more feedback) I'll be posting some details about how the engine works, and plans for additional features. I look forward to everyone's responses!

[TallyOne]

I've been using theideaweb search option for some time, preferring it to Yahoo, Google, Netscape, etc. From a speed perspective, I'm on a dial-up, so I am generally happy that anything shows up within minutes, rather than seconds. As to content, I've always been able to get what I need from the searches.
In short, my overall impression is positive.

TallyOne

[Corrvin]

Tried the usual fun vanity searches. As fast as anything I've seen with other search engines like G**gle, and I usually get a couple more relevant results.

Found another Corrvin, besides the guy who plays EverQuest on the Lanys T'Vyl server.

Searched for a friend or two with fairly unique names and found things about them I didn't yet know. (Also discovered that a few folks weren't as unique as I thought.)

Next search: locate the Random Kitten Generator. A search on "random kitten" didn't turn this up, surprisingly, but it DID turn up a few other similar sites. Well, LOTS of similar sites.

Is the internet now full of random kittens? Is the true end of the universe not adult spam, or chain letters from Zimbabwe, but... billions upon billions of cute fuzzballs of doom?

Corrvin

[MiamiFinsFan]

Originally posted by Corrvin
Is the internet now full of random kittens? Is the true end of the universe not adult spam, or chain letters from Zimbabwe, but... billions upon billions of cute fuzzballs of doom?

Corrvin

Hehe, good one.

[AMJones]

I've put this engine into place as TIW's primary search engine, so now searches from the searchbox at the top of the screen will be processed through the new engine. This should help to give it a bit more exposure, so we can get all the bugs nailed down. At this time, it is definitely still considered to be a beta test.

The next step in development (now that the speed issue seems to be tackled) will be to add features. I've got several things planned at this point, including the ability for members to tweak the engines included in the results, special links giving more info about results pages, etc. I'd also love to hear ideas for features -- what are *you* looking for in a search engine?

We're also going to start in earnest on the long quest of building up our human-reviewed directory, as these results are an important part of the search engine. I'll be posting someitme within the next week asking for members interested in helping to moderate and build that directory.

Please, post in this thread if you discover any oddities or bugs in the new search engine. While I and my team have done a large amount of testing - we can't anticiapte every possible situation, and I'm quite sure that there's still a few bugs in the code somewhere.

Hi my name is Alan Fanning and I've just been using your search engine to find work related (travel) sites and I've had great success so I thought I'd let you know.
I also searched for my own company. Almara Accommodations Dublin.
A free quality accommodation booking service specializing in the Dublin/Ireland area. We find and reserve Hostels,B&Bs and Hotels at no charge.