OINGO - MEANING-BASED SEARCHES ON OPEN DIRECTORY
Oingo attempts to increase the effectiveness of searching the Open Directory Project Project (Open Directory) which is an enormous, volunteer-created subject directory of websites, currently containing over 160,000 subject categories. It's used by several major search engines (e.g., HotBot, Netscape Search, AOL.COM Search and others), in addition to maintaining its own site.
Instead of searching for the literal text of search words, Oingo performs "meaning-based" searches based on a relational database of terms, developed by human beings rather than machines.
Results: These meaning-based searches retrieve Open Directory subject categories that are related to search words as well as categories containing sites with keyword matches. Oingo also provides the first 10 websites retrieved from an Alta Vista search.
Oingo's results are often an improvement over the results achieved by searching Open Directory from other engines because they provide a broader perspective of the subject. For example, among the categories retrieved in a search for digital radio were Signal Processing and Audio Production.
The results are organized by subject category, and you usually have to select a category to see the websites that it contains. However in categories containing only a few sites with keyword matches, these sites are displayed. In categories containing more than three matching sites, Oingo lists the number of sites with keyword matches.
Search Tips: Along with the results of a search, Oingo displays a drop-down menu showing possible meanings of your search words (e.g., for the keyword record, some of the meanings listed were criminal record, record (achievement), and phonograph record.). You can also search using all possible meanings for term or just search for the word, not for its meaning (the literal word). In many cases, searching for the literal word will give you the best results.
The only search operator available is the plus sign to require words. For some reason, I got better results when I didn't use it.
As the Open Directory grows, I think it's likely that Oingo will become increasingly valuable.
SurfWax - A METASEARCH ENGINE THAT HELPS YOU FOCUS YOUR SEARCH
SurfWax is a metasearch engine with some unusual features. The most striking of these is its presentation of results.
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