Something Wiki This Way Comes

One of the limitations for niche publishers that offer web searches is that the top results often don't match the match the content of the site. For example, if you do a web search (Yahoo) on Sports Illustrated's football site for Bush, none of the top search results mention running back Reggie, but you do get links about the band and the President.

Enter the "swiki" from Eurekster, an adaptive search engine that re-ranks results from Yahoo based on the searches performed on that site alone. Over time the results that are most frequently clicked on will rise to the top, according to Eurekster CEO Steven Marder.

Marder says that swiki's improved results can double the use of search on a site. Publishers can exclude competitors or other domains from showing up in the results. Swikis also generate"buzz clouds" of popular search terms. The software is available as a free download for small publishers or as a hosted service.

A natural extension would be for the contextual ads generated to also match the filtered search results, and Marder says that integrating advertising is in the works. People don't object to ads, but "irrelevant advertising is the problem," according to Marder. Eurekster currently works with Yahoo and Miva, and does a revenue split with its customers.

Speaking of things wiki, a group of Wiki enthusiasts met in Portland this weekend to brainstorm about where to take the fledgling technology.