Search Ann Arbor

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:27:26 -0400

Search over 1400 Ann Arbor, Michigan area business and organization web sites with this new vertical search engine.

Google is a killer search engine. Everybody knows that.

Google searches over billions and billions of web pages, allowing you to find things with amazingly little effort. But sometimes, the fact that Google searches so many pages is actually a problem. Sometimes, you're not interested in the entire web, but just some narrow (but still big) slice of it. For example, suppose you're searching a specific company and its trading partners; or doing research on a specific drug; or looking for real estate in a given area. You don't want results form the entire web. You want results just exactly about what you are looking for. The trouble is, Google does not know what you are really interested in; it only knows the words you typed in the search box.

Google understands this. That's why they created a programmable interface to let developers build custom, "vertical" search engines that focus on specific subsets of the web.

At MyST, we've built on this idea by incorporating seamless integration of Google custom search engine technology into the MyST platform. As a result, we have extended our MyST Blogsite and MyST Enterprise RSS service offerings to include MyST Vertical Search services.

As an example of a vertical search site built on the MyST platform, I recently launched a site called Search Ann Arbor. This site lets visitors search over 1400 Ann Arbor area business and organization web sites.

The benefits of a vertical search engine are obvious as soon as you try using one. For example, go to Google and search for "pizza," or "movies," or "clothing". How likely are you to find a local result? Now, go to Search Ann Arbor and try the same thing. While the results here may be of little use to someone in California, the are of great us to someone in Ann Arbor.

Do you have an idea for a vertical search engine? Would you like a unified, multi-domain search that covers your various company web sites, blog sites, e-commerce sites, etc.? Leave a comment here or contact me directly.

FAS Talk | F. Andy Seidl

Search Ann Arbor

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