Alternative search engine Quintura, which I've mentioned before on this blog, has launched its site search widget. This widget allows site publishers to provide users with a specialized search limited to that specific site; it joins earlier offerings from Google, Yahoo!, Rollyo and Eurekster swiki in this space.
This blog was an early user of this widget. You can see a customized, Quintura-generated mini-tag cloud in the earlier post; a full-size tag cloud is also available. The widget is hosted by Quintura, so installation was a snap: once the site was indexed, all I had to do was to embed the widget code into my blog pages and provide some styling control.
The biggest benefit of using the Quintura solution, as I've said before, is the dynamic tag cloud that allows the user to navigate the search space; initial feedback from our readers here has been positive, but not enthusiastic.
The real benefits to both users and publishers will come when Quintura search results prove to be better than equivalent results from a mainstream search engine solution, such as Google; as long as the Google site search results are good enough, it will be hard for the Quintura widget to make significant inroads into the market share of the big-G juggernaut.
This widget release is currently in private beta; an invite for this beta is available over on ReadWriteWeb.
Comments