Oneupweb : Slash the Web with Blekko
Search engines come and go, and most of us don’t even realize it’s happening. As creatures of habit, we go to our favorite search engine as our go to means of getting information, and we are reluctant to try anything new. Beyond that, how do we ever try anything new if we don’t hear about it or know how to pronounce it?
That partly explains the fate of Cuil—a search engine that went offline late September. It’s pronounced “cool,” by the way, but can you imagine a friend telling you to “Just Cuil it?”
Not exactly catching.
The other part of the challenge is gaining market share. Clearly, Google is the winner in the search engine space. When new search engines come along, they have an automatic comparison to the juggernaut—Google. And most of the time, they don’t live up to the hype. Cuil, by the way, was once pronounced a “Google killer.” But there’s a new search engine in town, and it is not believed to be a “Google killer,” but it is definitely getting some attention.
Let’s talk about Blekko.
Pronounced “blech – o,” Blekko aims to clear the web of spam by using slashtags. Slashtags help refine results. Here’s an example:
In order to narrow my Jersey Shore search query to only contain results about the latest gossip, I used a /gossip slashtag. You can create an account and create slashtags, use other people’s tags, or modify tags Blekko created just like you would a Wikipedia article.
The creators of Blekko believe this type of searching will help people use advanced search tools in an incredibly easy way. Blekko also shares an entire suite of SEO tools, which I look forward to investigating. You can identify duplicate content, link data, and a whole lot more in a single click off the results page:
Part of Blekko’s bill of rights include making search open, clear of spam, and making data accessible and not so secretive. This sense of openness and community differentiates it from Google in a major way. Of course, time will tell if this engine gains any traction, and if people will embrace slashing the web. If you want help slashing the web, be sure to contact Oneupweb. We’ve been around long enough to see plenty of search engines die on the vine and we’ve seen others do quite well.
Will you use Blekko? Or more importantly, do you know the literal translation of Blekko?
