Wikia debuts open-source search engine

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 7 Jan 2008 at 11:38

After a brief period of alpha testing, Wikia's open-source search engine has opened its doors to the public.

Wikia Search, the brainchild of Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, differentiates itself from other search engines by allowing users to rank search result relevance through a simple five-star system. The rankings are then fed back into the search algorithm, promoting or demoting their page rank by user feedback.

Users can also add comments on articles, and edit the mini-articles that will accompany popular searches, offering background information and history. More intriguingly, is Wikia's intention of publishing the source code behind its search tool, lifting the lid on how results are served and pages are ranked.

"Search is a fundamental part of the infrastructure of the internet, and that it should therefore be done in an open, objective, accountable way," Wales says.

Wikia is also building a series of social networking tools into its engine, with users able to create profiles, upload photos and messages.

Wikia has warned against expecting too much of Wikia-Search too soon.

"We are aware that the quality of the search results is low," a post admits on the company's blog.

"Wikia's search engine concept is that of trusted user feedback from a community of users acting together in an open, transparent, public way. Of course, before we start, we have no user feedback data. So the results are pretty bad. But we expect them to improve rapidly in coming weeks, so please bookmark the site and return often."

Wikia, which is a for-profit company separate from Wikimedia which runs Wikipedia, says it is looking at methods of monetising its offering. Although its admits an advertising model will be involved, it says it has no concrete plans drawn up and no partners at the present.