New search engine uses people power

A new search engine based in the United States has said it will release a test version soon in an attempt to challenge Google in at least one key area – relevance.

Blekko has said the internet is becoming littered with websites filled with spam, which are usually generated to show up in Google, but don’t actually use any valuable information and degrade the user experience.

Blekko has said its search engine limits results to pre-approved search results, meaning it will provide more relevant content.

“Relevance is returning on-topic results that closely pertain to the user’s query from the best sources available. The magic behind the Blekko technology is a simple tool called a slashtag,” the company told ComputerWorld.

“Slashtags are curated sets of web sites organized around a particular topic. These cover topics as broad as health, money, and autos, and as narrow as gluten-free, neurotechnology, and the Grateful Dead. Slashtags are appended to search queries and limit search results to only the curated sets of sites.”

Google has said in a statement that it welcomes competition.