Search engines are evolving very rapidly these days, and Google is certainly leading the race. But look closely at what Google has recently announced. The recent “Universal Search” initiative is very interesting in what it tells us about what Google is having a hard time doing, namely, having users take advantage of the many specialty search engines and services that they have to offer (image search, video search, book search, google scholar, etc.).

In more ways than one, what Google is trying to do is to introduce some form of serendipity between their specialty searches, so that people looking for something on the Web discover, for instance, that there are videos or books about that topic. This is the clearest indication that the very “linear” user experience that Google has imposed as a de-facto standard for search is about to reach a hard limit.

But as Exalead users know, Search By Serendipity (R) has been at the very heart of Exalead’s technology since day one : between different vertical search engines through the little “Exa mascott” that suggests audio or video results in the Web search, and in the more unique way within each vertical Exalead search application using a tag cloud of concepts to navigate in the search results (of our Wikipedia search for instance). It’s a better way to search that Exalead has developed and invested significant resources in to evolve.

We certainly find this process of searching by serendipity the most natural user experience for search, and we are very flattered to see the market leader validate that vision.

On a similar track, we are very pleased to see that Exalead’s latest innovations (image search with face recognition) has also been introduced (although still in a hidden form) a few days ago by Google. Maybe they had to release this ahead of schedule? Who knows…

Take note gamers: SplitGames and Exalead have teamed up to develop the first search engine devoted 100% to video games: GameSkoot. With SplitGames editorial know-how and Exalead’s powerhouse search technology, GameSkoot offers perfectly accurate search results for gamers.

GameSkoot lets you search sites, blogs and forums created by gamers for gamers. You can search all the web or just within special categories like News, Tests, Cheats and Forums. GameSkoot also offers a “Hot Stuff” section with the best customized gaming news thread to be found on the Internet.

In addition, GameSkoot uses “GamesRank^tm” technology to filter out the fluff and let the most relevant gaming content rise to the top. GamesRank is SplitGames’ patent-pending content ranking technology based in equal parts on insider editorial expertise, advanced crawler technologies and user-based feedback.

We’ll leave you now with our latest GameSkoot discovery, one gamer’s original solution for boosting his scores while building his biceps…

The Marketing Team

We’re happy to announce that you can now use Exalead to easily and quickly search
all your favorite videos from YouTube, Dailymotion, Metacafe, Kewego
and IFILM web sites.

To date we’ve indexed over 4 million videos using classification information
including author, title, date, description, duration, tags and categories,
and we’re adding new titles to our index each second!

In spite of the huge number of videos indexed, navigating the search results
is a snap with easy sort and filter options.

Use the pull-down box at the top right of your search results
() to sort the results by:

· Relevance,
· Most recent,
· Most rated,
· Most viewed, or
· Length.

You can also use the “Narrow your search” panel to refine your search by
source (website) or video length:

And just below the “Narrow your search” panel is a ‘cloud’ of keywords that
synthesizes the tags and categories of the videos appearing in your search
results, allowing you to refine your search across all video sites with a
single click.

Each search result listing includes a thumbnail image of the video, a title,
a summary description, and details such as author, duration, upload date,
and a viewer score represented by stars. Place your cursor over the stars
for more details about the score.

Selecting the detailed view gives you instant access to related videos by
associated tags and categories:

You can also click on an author’s name to discover other videos by that
author.

So no more hopping from site to site to find what you seek: simply go to
Exalead and let the cameras roll!

The Exalead Web Team

Please drop by the search engine rating page on the Webguild site, and rate our engine from 1 to 5 in 5 categories: Content, Authority, Navigation, Design and Accessibility. Your feedback is much appreciated!

Thanks,

The Marketing Team

Last week, Search Engine Land commented on PC World’s recent Search Engine Shoot Out.

Phil Bradley and Chris Sherman were surprised that Exalead wasn’t included in the round-up.

I was very surprised not to see Exalead on the listing, and when I used some of the sample queries Bertolucci used it performed very well indeed, and would certainly have been very highly placed in the final table. In fact, I could name a number of other engines that could easily have slipped into the list replacing those that simply should not have been there in the first place.

Phil Bradley also posted his list of top search engines to use based on each search engine’s strengths. For example, he notes Exalead is best if you:

• like to see thumbnail image previews of search results
• need to re-rank and re-order
• don’t know how to spell what you are looking for
• need to search for specific file formats (.txt, .pdf .doc .xls .ppt .rtf .wpd .swf)

The Marketing Team