Technology
The Eurekster swicki is a customized, community-driven social search portal that delivers more relevant results than generic search and provides a more focused and fresh search experience.
Our patent-pending technology includes the following unique features:
- Powerful web crawling technologies
- Search filters and preferences defined by swicki publishers
- Algorithms that automatically learn from users behavior
- Dynamically ranked search results users can vote and comment on
- A buzzcloud® widget of most popular search terms
- Community features allowing for active collaboration between publishers and users including AJAX voting, Q&A and user-submitted results.
Our proven technology is built on the following principles:
Personal Publishing applies to search engines: Allows the publisher to define the scope of the search, the nature of the search results, as well as the look and feel of the swicki widget and the results page.
Community powered search results: Allows users to vote and comment on results and considers explicit as well as implicit behavior for results re-ranking. The swicki learns and adapts to the community that uses it.
Glossary of Terms
My Site or Blog
The URL of the site on which the swicki is hosted, or which the swicki is based on. Results from the My Site URL are given top priority. If My Site has a blogroll, the sites will be added to the Whitelist. If My Site has an RSS feed, it will be indexed regularly and posts to the site will surface immediately in the results with a timestamp.
Benefit
Adding a My Site URL triggers many of the autodection, Möbius and RSS freshness features.
Technical note
Depending on the other sources selected, the top 4-20 Results from the My Site URL are served at the top of the results page. For a description of the limits of the autodetection feature, see the autodetection entry.
Topic
The focus of the swicki, described in one or two words. Results that include these words are prioritized for all sources.
Benefit
Including a topic for your swicki pre-filters all results so that they are more relevant and focused even before your audience votes and interacts on them.
Technical note
The topic words are added to all searches for the ‘My Site’, ‘Web’, ‘Greylist’, ‘RSS’, ‘Image’, ‘Video’ - and where the advertising network permits, the ‘Ad feed’.
Swicki Name
The swicki name is used as the title of the search results page, as well as part of the swicki’s URL.
Technical Note
No two swickis can have the same name. Once a swicki has been published, the name cannot be changed.
Whitelist
A list of URLs selected by the builder that are particularly relevant to the topic of the swicki. If the “My Site” has a Blogroll defined in a specific format, the URLs from that list will automatically be added to the whitelist. If a Whitelist site has an RSS feed linked as an industry-specified meta tag, it will automatically detected and added to the RSS List, where it will be indexed regularly and posts to the site will surface immediately in the results with a timestamp.
Benefit
Adding Whitelist sites means the default web results will be more topic focused and relevant.
Technical Note
The top 5 results from the whitelist are served immediately afer the “My Site” results.
Greylist
A system-generated list of URLs that the Möbius algorithm determined are relevant to the swicki.
Benefit
The Greylist surfaces previously unrecognized relevant sites and prioritizes results from these sites.
Technical note
The top 5 most results from the Greylist are served immediately after the “Whitelist” results.
Blocklist
The swicki builder or moderator can block results from specific sites from surfacing in the results by adding the site’s URL to the Blocklist using the train page or the moderator tools underneath any result.
Benefit
The Blocklist allows builders to block results from competitive or irrelevant sites.
Technical note
The Blocklist does not affect user-submitted posts or video results.
RSS List
A list of URLs of RSS feeds. They can either be autodetected from the My Site and Whitelist URLs, or manually managed by the builder.
Benefit
By indexing the RSS feed of the “My Site” URL, the swicki can return results from the site soon after it is published, make the search results super fresh. The RSS feed is often used by blogs and news sites to broadcast their latest stories - indexing the RSS feeds of the Whitelist surfaces the latest news articles published by these sites.
Technical note
RSS results are shown with a timestamp when they are less than one week old. We index RSS feeds once an hour using the Nutch open source indexing engine http://lucene.apache.org/nutch/docs/en/. When manually managed, multiple RSS feeds from one site can be accessed.
Buzzcloud
A list of the latest, hot searches and tags about the swicki topic. The Buzzcloud is constantly updated by the Möbius algorhithm based on other terms already in the buzzcloud and the sites in the Whitelist.
Benefit
The Buzzcloud is dynamic fresh set of user generated content that can easily be added to any website or blog to make it more interesting for users.
Technical note
The buzzcloud surfaces community search activity as well as the latest publishing activty from MY Site and the Whitelist. When building a swicki, it is necessary to seed the buzzcloud with important terms in order for the Möbius algorhitm to detect new Whitelist sites and Buzzcloud tags.
Möbius
Based on terms in the Buzzcloud and sites in the Whitelist, Möbius automatically adds new and relevant tags to the Buzzcloud. and sites to the Greylist.
Benefit
Automatically surfaces new and interesting content while keeping the swicki on focus.
Technical note
Möbius does not work with video content, or if there are no Buzzcloud terms or Whitelist URLs.
Autodetection: RSS
RSS Autodetection find the RSS feeds of URLs in “My Site” and the “Whitelist” and adds them to the “RSS List”.
Benefit
The system locates the RSS feed so the swicki builder doesn’t have to.
Technical note
RSS Autodetection only works if the blog or site links to its RSS feed as an industry-specified meta tag. RSS Autodetection is scheduled as soon as the builder finishes the “Train”. Occassionally, depending on the number of other Autodetection tasks scheduled, RSS Autodetection may not complete until after the swicki is published.
Autodetection: Blogroll
If the “My Site” has a Blogroll defined in a specific format, the URLs from that list will automatically be added to the whitelist.
Benefits
Automatically promotes content from sites listed as important on “My Site”.
Technical note
Blogroll Autodetection only works if the blog or site links to its RSS feed as an industry-specified meta tag. RSS Autodetection is scheduled as soon as the builder finishes the “Train”. Occassionally, depending on the number of other Autodetection tasks scheduled, Blogroll Autodetection may not complete until after the swicki is published.
Autodetection: Metatags
If the URLs entered in “My Site” or in the “Whitelist” have metatags embedded in their page, the tags are automatically added to the Buzzcloud.
Benefit
The Buzzcloud automatically grows with new, related content.
Technical note
Metatag Autodetection is scheduled as soon as the builder finishes the “Train” page and is often complete by the time she arrives at the “Publish & Distribute” page. Occassionally, depending on the number of other Autodetection tasks scheduled, Metatag Autodetection may not complete until later.
RSS Result
A search result found in the RSS feed. On the swicki results page, these results include a timestamp when the post is less than a week old.
Benefit
Including RSS feeds in the search results ensures your swicki is instantly up to date and fresher than general search engines
User Geneated Content (UGC) or Posted Result
Users of a swicki can post a result to the results page.
Benefit
Searches can submit new and interesting articles, similar to social news sites such as Digg or Reddit. They can also simply leave a comment about the search.
Comment on any result
Searches can leave a comment on any result.