Earlier this year, PreFound.com launched with an interesting idea: build a community-based Web-searching site based on the search evaluations of people who searched before you. People are much better at evaluating the usefulness of Web search results than computers: since many people tend to search for similar things, presenting the results for a particular topic that other users liked best is probably a good way to separate the wheat from the chaff. And the link farms.
Today, Prefound.com introduced its Social Search Equalizer, which lets users fine-tune their search results to focus on items matching their personal interests and background. Users enter labels and data (like a ZIP code) which describe up to four topics of interest: users can then enter additional labels or keywords to further narrow the search results, at which point the settings on the Social Search Equalizer can be adjusted up or down to narrow or broaden the search results based on the user’s criteria. The higher the settings on the Equalizer, the more the results reflect the user’s specific interests; conversely, a flat setting returns a more “Google-like” set of results based solely on keywords. Users can adjust the weight of individual keywords using controllers on the Equalizer: for instance, when looking for local information a ZIP code might have a higher weight than a more generic term.
“The Social Search Equalizer provides PreFound searchers with an effective way to personalize and tailor their search results according to specific, declared interests,” said Steve Mansfield, CEO of iLOR LLC, and PreFound.com, in a statement. “We’ve taken search to an entirely new level of detail with this tool. The SSE marks a milestone toward reaching the search industry’s end-goal of providing users with the most targeted and relevant search results possible.”
PreFound.com’s Social Search Equalizer doesn’t require any special software or installation, but you have to be a logged-in member of the PreFound.com community to use it.
