Insta.Found - Search. This search engine says of itself "Insta.Found is a brand new service which aims to help you avoid the
normal time waster of searching through thousands of web pages looking
for the right site for what you are looking for." A bit like the Google "I'm feeling lucky button" then? Apparently not. This is because "No! Google relies on their system working and nothing else. Insta is
all about removing the luck and replacing it with knowledge. Our system
uses advanced algorithms to detect what site to send you to. We take
data from 10 sources and combine it." Pretty much the same if you ask me, other than the multiple search engine element.
Let's take a look at how it works then. Ego search first - 'phil bradley' takes me to the Wikipedia page for the baseball player. Google takes me to my website. Well, to be fair to Insta.Found it does say that searchers should input 'a term'. I try again. 'phil bradley librarian' takes me to a site that I once wrote an article for. Same search at Google offers me my site, my blog and my twitter account. 'phil bradley internet consultant' dumps me at a Squidoo page. Google takes me to my own site.
Maybe it's just me. A search for my colleague Karen Blakeman takes me to her Slideshare page. Google takes me to a page on her site which is her 'about her' page. 'Hubble telescope' gives me the same result as Google. 'martin luther king' does to be fair take me to the Nobel Prize site biography page for the man, while Google takes the easy option of Wikipedia. With 'country search engines' Insta.Found takes me to a 2002 article in SearchEngineWatch, while Google takes me to my listing of 4,000+ engines.
Finally I tried searching Insta.Found for itself. It took me to AltSearchEngines review, while Google suggested that I might actually want to go to the site itself. Oh dear. Back to the drawing board chaps!
Let's take a look at how it works then. Ego search first - 'phil bradley' takes me to the Wikipedia page for the baseball player. Google takes me to my website. Well, to be fair to Insta.Found it does say that searchers should input 'a term'. I try again. 'phil bradley librarian' takes me to a site that I once wrote an article for. Same search at Google offers me my site, my blog and my twitter account. 'phil bradley internet consultant' dumps me at a Squidoo page. Google takes me to my own site.
Maybe it's just me. A search for my colleague Karen Blakeman takes me to her Slideshare page. Google takes me to a page on her site which is her 'about her' page. 'Hubble telescope' gives me the same result as Google. 'martin luther king' does to be fair take me to the Nobel Prize site biography page for the man, while Google takes the easy option of Wikipedia. With 'country search engines' Insta.Found takes me to a 2002 article in SearchEngineWatch, while Google takes me to my listing of 4,000+ engines.
Finally I tried searching Insta.Found for itself. It took me to AltSearchEngines review, while Google suggested that I might actually want to go to the site itself. Oh dear. Back to the drawing board chaps!
Hi Phil,
Thank you for the write up. I would like to apologise for the incorrect results set you got. I have a server down which resulted in the 10th result being sent, not the first. This has been solved and I plead of you to give it another try!
Thanks,
Daniel.
Posted by: Daniel Clarke | January 18, 2010 at 07:43 PM