Hilda Mateiu
The internet offers an endless amount of information on all kind of subjects. However not everything that is available can be trusted by users. When serious, trustful information is needed, users might have difficulties in choosing from the many potential answers. That is why a search engine that provides only relevant and trustworthy results can be very helpful. This was the main idea behind Blekko, a less used but more selective search engine.
Blekko is the name of a search company founded in 2007, which nowadays provides a web search engine, designed to offer users high quality, relevant and spam free search results compared to all the results listed by Google. The program launched in 2010 combines traditional algorithmic search with the expertise of users, resulting in a set of 3 billion trusted web pages from where results are listed. As the company’s purpose is not to gather the entire world’s information but to deliver results only from best quality sites, results coming from sites such as content farms are excluded.
The greatest difference between Blekko and other search engines is that Blekko does not rely on link based authority. Which web pages are listed in results depends on tags made by Blekko users. So basically human beings and their judgment are involved in establishing search results. Of course such procedures limit the number of available results. Many sites that have a high rank in Google Search are never listed by Blekko. For example personal health related queries are listed only from 76 sites, but users can be sure the information obtained is relevant and accurate.
Let’s see how exactly Blekko works. After users type a query the results are listed below. Each user can establish whether results should be sorted by date or relevance. A specific feature of Blekko is the use of slashtags. If a slashtag is typed in front of the searched term, the program will further restrict the set of results to a specific characteristic. Slashtags can be created by Blekko, by every user or they can be programmed by Blekko to perform specific search functions such as date or blogs.
In order to ensure more transparence every Blekko search result has its SEO data associated with it. Users can obtain information like host rank, inbound links, states where the links come from and domains with duplicate content. This new approach allowed Blekko to enter on a market where still 66% of all searches are performed on Google.
Considering the selective manner of listing results used by Blekko and the credibility it brings to listed web pages, all webmasters should be interested in finding their pages among search results. However, as shown above that might not be so simple. Therefore the services of a SEO expert will be needed, who can optimize web pages and make sure they will be visible and trustworthy for clients worldwide. For more SEO information, services and optimization please contact Hilda Mateiu, a well known SEO expert in the San Diego area.
