Wikia Search Launches – Not Quite Google
James Gill / January 7, 2008
The search engine, set to “take on” Google, built by the same people as Wikipedia has finally been released as a public beta.
Much to the disappointment of the majority of the media, Wikia is in no way a finished product.
I have spent a while experimenting with the new “human powered” search project, but, mainly due to the limited search index, am bitterly disappointed with the quality of search results. For example, searching “GoSquared” on Wikia will, as the first result, give one of our previous most popular posts, while Google will present you with the GoSquared homepage. Which is more useful to our potential visitors: our home page, designed to provide easy access for first time viewers to anywhere else on the site, or a blog post we wrote several weeks ago?
Wikia’s search index needs updating fast, and their social tools for promoting “good” pages, and demoting “bad” ones need to be developed greatly, and fast. Thankfully Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia and Wikia, has already responded to many criticisms by commenting on various blogs, including TechCrunch. He made the comment “It’s a project to *build* a search engine, not a search engine.”
Whatever is said, I sincerely doubt many will be switching from Google just yet.
valzilla2cool said,
January 7, 2008 at 20:39 ()
I think they should just make it a search engine of academic texts.
Micah said,
January 7, 2008 at 21:39 ()
Not that this is really a key point, but the design isn't that great, in my opinion. It just looks to me like all of those "fake" websites out there - simplified graphics, not much unity, large text... eh. Google will not be effected.
G said,
January 7, 2008 at 21:53 ()
Yeah, the design didn't blow me away either - it doesn't look like much thought has gone into a consistent colour scheme, or the information architecture of the site design. The design generally is quite disjointed, especially when you follow a link to a Wikipedia style page.
I agree Valzilla, or perhaps it would have made more sense if they built a search engine that simply focused on searching wikis.
Also, Google didn't become *the* search engine by making you sign up before being able to change your personal search settings.