

Why not just create a user curated search engine? - Skywing

I've been reading a lot of the Google-related search engine complaints. Who hasn't? They're everywhere for whatever reason. A common theme that I seem to see in most of them is that people seem to agree that some sort of user interaction is one of the few ways to eliminate spam and SEO content farm results.<p>So, why not just create a user curated search engine? Web pages would be indexed. Users would filter them, using queries. On a per-query basis, indexed pages would be subject to a reddit-esque voting system for relevance to that query. There would be no visible up voting, though. There would only be a visible down vote option. Up voting would be done automatically when a user clicks a result. Down voting would be done if a user visits a page and the page is not relevant to the query, so they come back to the search results and down vote the result (it would remove the automated up vote + 1 more to net a subtraction). Pages indexed more recently would be given priority over older pages. So what would eventually happen is the most viewed and newest pages for a query would bubble to the top, and older posts would be in the middle, and down rated posts would be at the end or maybe even excluded all together.<p>Obviously there are holes in this, such as people scamming the up-vote clicking mechanisms but I'm sure that could be prevented with more thought.<p>I think the key is that all of this voting is done on a per query basis, for relevance to that query.
======
michael_dorfman
_Obviously there are holes in this, such as people scamming the up-vote
clicking mechanisms_

I think you put your finger on it there. There are folks who have a financial
incentive for their pages to rank high. A "user-curated" system just opens up
additional avenues for "spam and SEO content farms" to game the system.

~~~
Skywing
Yes, but apply the Wikipedia phenomenon here. With more users using it for
good, perhaps it'd outweigh the bad? This, combined with actual measures to
prevent abuse of the system.

~~~
michael_dorfman
Nope, sorry. There are users with a financial incentive to game the system.
The "actual measures to prevent abuse" would have to be pretty damned
sophisticated. Algorithmic, in fact. Which brings us full circle...

~~~
Skywing
Then perhaps we could apply today's startup quote!

When you innovate, you’ve got to be prepared for people telling you that you
are nuts. - Larry Ellison

