Search Engine Alternatives

Quick! Search Engine! What comes to mind? Ha! — A look at visual search engines

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Okay, what did you think of? Google? Yahoo! Search? Microsoft Search? Or were you one of those non-conformists that insisted on coming up with something like Jeeves? If these are the only alternatives that came to mind for you, I’d like to submit that as an example of how habit can limit your responses and horizons.

Please don’t get me wrong, I use Google and Yahoo! search all of the time. If you know how to get behind the default interface, these can both be extremely powerful research tools. However, by the very paradigms they use, they tend to filter the results you get back. If you want to tap the full power of the Web, and give your organization a business advantage, you owe it to yourself to explore some of the other search engines out there. I must admit, I had no clue how many there actually were! Today, I’m going to focus on what might be classed as visual search engines, though they also can be classed as a subset of metadata search engines.

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Let’s ease into this different paradigm, and pay homage to Robert Heinlein, by first looking at Grokker. Grokker, like a number of these tools, is more of a commercial search consolidation engine. It allows you to tap existing search engines, such as Yahoo! and Google, as well as private search services. It then extracts the metadata from these searches and consolidates them into categories that are graphically displayed to simplify your evaluation of the search results.

Grokker results can be displayed in an outline or map view format. When displayed in a map view, related hits are grouped in circular clusters, either as individual documents or as additional nested circular clusters. Moving the cursor over an individual document will trigger the display of a balloon with details regarding the hit. Moving the cursor over just the circle, avoiding the document, will display information regarding the metadata defining the circle. An adjoining window displays text details regarding the selected graphic object. The interface currently appears to be English only.

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Map of the Internet takes a different approach, listing itself as a visual search engine, index and directory. It allows you to search by both subjects and domains (or IP addresses). It uses a cube metaphor for consolidating information, which may be a little difficult to grasp at first, but is interesting to explore. A neat feature of this tool is that its tool bar allows you to directly ping, execute a whois request, perform a trace route, or obtain information about the server for the selected site. The interface currently appears to be English only.

Searchme, still in public beta, takes yet another approach. Instead of a list of hits, its search results are returned as a stack of Web pages you can flip through, rather like a binder or Rollodex. This is definitely a more useful feature to help refine a search than having to manually open every potential hit to see if it’s useful. You can optionally search the Web, videos, images or music. It also allows you to share searches by dragging any interesting hits you find onto ‘stacks.’ Currently, these stacks are stored on your local PC, but their avowed goal is to eventually migrate this storage onto one of the Searchme servers so that it can be accessed from anywhere. The interface currently appears to be English only.

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Quintura See & Find is another beta search engine. It processes your search results, extracting the metadata and displays it as a word cloud. You can graphically navigate this cloud to refine your search, basically pruning the search tree it creates. This is definitely a more intuitive tool to use than some of the other search engines I’ve encountered and includes a customized version for kids. Quintura also allows you to share and save your searches. The Web version supports English and Russian. A French language plug-in is available for the downloadable Quintura Web search client.

A graphical search engine that I find particularly interesting is KartOO from KartOO Technologies in France. Search terms may be entered using its extensive command sytax or by using a natural language query (just remember to terminate the later with a question mark). Similar to Quintura in that it generates a word cloud, it actively shows the links between the various metadata tags and sites.

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If you move the cursor over a site, a brief text description will be displayed at the top left of the search window. If you move the cursor over a metadata tag, the links between the various sites for these tags will be graphically displayed. Clicking on these tags will add them to your search criteria, generating a new map.

KartOO allows you to both save and print the search maps you generate. It can be set to query the Web, search for images or videos, or restrict its query to Wikipedia. Images used for its site icons are miniature versions of the target Web pages. It supports English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.

Also from KartOO is UJIKO. Similar in functionality to KartOO, it uses a different display metaphor. Reminding me more of one of the various interface devices used on Star Trek, its interface consists of an oval with your search term entered at the top, the retrieved metadata taps displayed in a circle in the center, and the Web site hits displayed on either side of the circle. The metadata tags are color-coded and concentric circles around the metadata tags indicate which hit is associated with a particular tag. Moving the cursor over a tag causes the associated hit to be highlighted. Clicking on the tag adds it to the query and refreshes the displayed search.

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Details of UJIKO’s appearance will change with time, as the more you use it, i.e. the more sites you visit, the more controls and options will be displayed. If one of the search terms has multiple meanings, it will attempt to group the sites with the same meanings together. It supports English, French, and German interfaces.

Reviewing these search engines only reinforces the idea that no tool is the best one for all applications. No matter what your current favorite search engine is, be open to exploring new ones. Remember, changing your paradigm can frequently make the most intractable problem trivial. If you’ve found a search engine that’s radically changed the way you work, let us know and we’ll be happy to share it.

John Joyce is the LIMS manager for Virginia’s State Division of Consolidated Laboratory Services. He may be contacted at editor@ScientificComputing.com.

Related Resources
Groxis (Grokker) www.grokker.com
Map of the Internet mapoftheinternet.com/start01.shtml
SearchMe www.SearchMe.com
Quintura www.quintura.com
KartOO www.kartoo.com
UJIKO www.ujiko.com