Jan
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Wikia Search
Filed under: Asides | Tags: jimmy wales, wikia | January 7th, 2008
Wikia Search is pretty darn cool. Not sure what I was expecting, I guess I assumed that search would be much harder than doing a wiki. The “Visvo” index seems good enough for daily search use. Their social networking stuff is clean too, here’s my profile — please add me as a friend! (I hope those links work post-alpha.) If they can pull off an open source ranking algorithm… that’s pretty exciting. (1 
GaMerZ | January 7th, 2008 @ 1:59 am
Added you Matt =)
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MacMacken | January 7th, 2008 @ 3:10 am
You’re kidding, right?
Panayotis Vryonis | January 7th, 2008 @ 3:27 am
The social network is *very* interesting. Especially the “trust level” thing. Could they implement the “web of trust”? If they do it right, the could become the most important digital identity certification authority out there. (but… where’s the PGP field?
forum | January 7th, 2008 @ 3:50 am
I hope Wikia Search will be biggest in search engines
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Matt L. | January 7th, 2008 @ 6:08 am
Thanks for pointing this out. I think a popular open source search engine is exactly what the web needs right now.
Ted Clayton | January 7th, 2008 @ 7:37 am
Yes, no slam on Google et al, but We ought to be more involved in Search & Ranking. I went to the front page, tried ‘wordpress plugin’, and was invited to start a Mini Article - no results. Tried ‘wordpress’ - same. I’m not the guy to do this - but it’s there!
I signed up ok, but then couldn’t login or do profile. Looked like they’re saving the servers for signups.
Micah Baldwin | January 7th, 2008 @ 11:47 am
Using it is simple enough, but the results are not very good. My test search I always do “home improvement” returns 7/10 affiliate pages rather than valuable sites, whereas Google only returns 1/10.
Without relevant results, how valuable is the engine and social pieces?
BandonRandon | January 7th, 2008 @ 12:19 pm
For some reason i can’t get the link you your profile to work. I signed up for an account. This looks like it’s going to be awesome!
Thanks Matt for always bringing new things to my attention!
Brandon
BandonRandon | January 7th, 2008 @ 12:24 pm
I take that back, I just had to validate my e-mail!
Sorry about that,
Brandon
jez | January 7th, 2008 @ 2:05 pm
added you as well today
Matt L. | January 7th, 2008 @ 2:31 pm
@Micah - You should visit http://search.wikia.com/wiki/Search_Wikia
“Of course, before we start, we have no user feedback data. So the results are pretty bad. But we expect them to improve rapidly in coming weeks…”
Nathan | January 7th, 2008 @ 3:33 pm
I notice that you are only the sixth most important Matt in the world according to Wikia. I’m sure that is devastating.
Strange Rob | January 7th, 2008 @ 3:38 pm
Oh, is it finally out? I wonder if I’ll be able to submit any sites there? I’m always blocked at wikipedia. Not that I have much I want to add to wikipedia but every now and then I find an entry that I could contribute to that has some serious omissions that I know about.
Anyway, I’ve been curious to see just how this wiki search thang will pan out.
Micah Baldwin | January 7th, 2008 @ 8:59 pm
@matt l. for sure, but grub has been around forever. dont you think a simple spam filter would have been useful prior to launching a product. I think the concept is interesting, but search engine spam will always be an issue without filters (two disclaimers: 1) I used to own a search marketing agency, so the first thing I always think about with a new search engine is how easy will it be to game; and 2) I work for a blog search company - Lijit, which is NOT a search engine, but tries to solve the relevancy issue through a smaller search universe and trust relationships).
I would love to see human powered search engines exist and grow; I just know that spam filtering has to be the highest priority or else the search engine will never be successful.
Soverato News | January 9th, 2008 @ 1:33 am
Why you ban me,
is not for me to say what i thing?
ban”I signed up, but what is really new on wikia that we don’t have with google?”/ban
++ for now the result are (in wikia) dmoz listed site plus some other website.
++ google is also collaborative
++ google have a rating sistem
++ google have coop
++ and also (in webmaster tools) Report spam in our index and Report paid links
++ plus ten years of experience
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