14 DAY TRIAL // We have heard about semantic search, which returns results that are suited to users' intentions, and about contextual display of results, when search engines are guided by the long-term search behavior. But SearchCloud, a search engine that launched a few days ago, uses word "weight," as it was called, in order to determine which are the most relevant results for a query.
The mechanism is simple. All users have to do is type the keywords in a box, and then select how important each word is, by attributing to it one of the five sizes. The largest size corresponds to the word that is considered to be most important for returning the expected results. For example, if someone wants to read something about floods that affected London, they have to underscore "floods" because, otherwise, other more relevant aspects regarding "London" will be displayed.
SeachCloud uses Yahoo!'s BOSS technology, which allows an ordination of results, before returning them to users. The techology provided by Yahoo! is not, in fact, totally free of charge, as SearchCloud has to display some of Yahoo!'s ads without receiving part of the revenues. Weighting keywords has the role of filtering the best results, which the team from SearchCloud assures the search engine does. "Your results will be better than with Google because the search terms were prioritized the way you wanted them to be," says one of SeachCloud's affiliates in a tutorial meant to show people how to use the new search engine.
If someone wants to refine a series of keywords to which the right weights were not attributed, they don't have to start it all over again. The search engine offers an editing tool, which presents users with the possibility of changing the weight of some words or even of erasing them.
Although, lately, search engines have popped up like mushrooms, and they all seem to have something to challenge Google with, when tested, it becomes clear that it isn't so easy to uncrown the indisputable leader.