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140
Steve Weber
Another popular vertical search tool is provided by Rollyo, which
promises to help users “roll your own” search engine. For details, visit:
Google is getting into the personalized-search field too. In late 2006, it
began testing Google Customized Search, which is linked to its AdSense
program. You can specify the Web sites you want searched and integrate
its search box and results into your own site. See:
Amazon Search Suggestions
“Search Suggestions“ is a feature launched in 2006 enabling anyone
with an Amazon account to add a bit of human intelligence to the site’s
search engine. On each book detail page, the link Make a Search
Suggestion allows users to recommend tying a book to specific keywords.
Users also explain why the keywords are relevant and will help people
find the book.
One way for an author to take advantage of Search Suggestions is to
link their book with relevant words and expressions that don’t appear in
its title or subtitle, or perhaps even the full text. For example, let’s
imagine you’ve written a book about predicting hurricanes. A year after
your book goes on sale, the most damaging hurricane in history, a storm
named Zelda, devastates the Florida coast. By entering the Search
Suggestion “Hurricane Zelda,” more buyers would find your book, even
though it didn’t contain “Zelda.”
Once your Search Suggestion is approved, when customers search
using your keywords, the book appears in search results along with your
relevancy explanation.
For example, one Amazon customer submitted a search suggestion
for Shakespeare’s play Macbeth. Now Macbeth appears when customers
search for “The Scottish Play.” The relevancy explanation is shown next
to a link to the book: “Theater superstition dictates that ‘Macbeth’ is
referred to as ‘the Scottish play.’”
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