Blekko, a new type of search engine, became available to the public Monday. What is Blekko and does it have what it takes to take on Google?
Is Blekko the new Google? Their founders sure hope so.
Blekko was released in public Beta today with the purpose of making searches simple, relevant and free of spam (good luck with that one.)
Slashtags
Blekko separates itself from Google, Yahoo! and Bing with the use of something they call slashtags. Basically, it means you can focus your search results into specific sites. For example, searching for “flat iron reviews” will net you results containing several product reviews and websites selling flat irons.
Instead, on Blekko you would enter /reviewsites and add all of the websites that you know that offer product reviews, according to Geek.com. You can then use that slashtag in the future when looking for certain product reviews.
Slashtags can be shared between users, so you can choose from other people’s work to make the process easier. Blekko also has pre-made slashtags available for your use, along with a spam button that flags, well, spammy or blatant advertising listings.
Community
The main idea behind Blekko is community, meaning that users help dictate what the search engine can do. For example, you can establish yourself as an expert in the Blekko community by creating superior slashtags based on your area of expertise.
Potential issues
Like any user-based system, Blekko has the potential to be biased. A contributor for ReelSEO entered “video” into the search and the main listings included websites like CNN, IMDB and College Humor. A glaring omission? YouTube, arguably the largest video outlet on the web.
Blekko is in beta, so there are still problems to work out. We hope they figure it out so we have an alternative when seeking out certain kinds of information.
Otherwise, well, anyone remember Altavista? Exactly.
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