Please Review ZapMeta

[khn]

Hello Everyone,

Please let us know what you think of our new meta-search engine...

http://www.ZapMeta.com

Provide us your input on the following factors:

1. Speed - Fast? Average? Slow?
What do you think of ZapMeta's speed comparing to other meta search engines?

2. Advanced Search (http://zapmeta.com/search/meta/advanced/adv_web.pl) and Preferences (http://www.zapmeta.com/search/meta/preferences.pl) - Useful or Useless?
Advanced search enables users to restrict their search and the ability to customize the output of their results. Preferences were made to work in conjunction with advanced search. In other words, if you change a value in preferences, it will also be reflected in advanced search if the value is present.

3. Design - Visually appealing or overloaded with graphics?
What do you think of our effort in trying to put a distinction between ZapMeta's design and the plain html design of most search engines?

4. Result Relevancy - On the mark or not close at all?
We wanted ZapMeta to return relevant results, so sponsored links will never be included in the actual results (unless selected in preferences). Along with our smart algorithm, ZapMeta is able to produce more relevant results than most meta search engines. Or at least that's what we think, :) let us know your thoughts.

5. Bugs and Errors
Please report any bug or error if you encounter them.

Anything you dislike or like? Please let us know, all feedback, comments, and/or suggestions are highly appreciated.

Regards,
Kevin

[Lotus]

Hey.

I just checked out your new search engine. It sure looks great, but is it?

1. It was quite slow compared to f.ex. AltaVista or Google. Still, I've seen many search engines that are MUCH slower than this one.

2. The Advanced Search is nearly useless. For example, in stead of writing something in the "must contain exact words" box, you can just add "s in the front and the end of a basic search. Much faster and much easier. Plus, who cares where the page is located? Confusing, really; japanese pages can be on german servers, so it's quite misleading.

3. Visually it's great. Gradients, fancy buttons, good menus etc... I can only congratulate you.

4. It is a very exact engine, and the results often matched my exact needs. Again, congratultations.

5. I confronted no errors. Great!!!
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Conclusion:

It's a slow engine, but it's one of the most accurate and powerful engines available. Check it out folxx!

[khn]

Lotus,

Keep in mind that ZapMeta is a meta-search engine, therefore search time may be a bit longer traditional search engines (google, av, etc). Because it must wait for all results to arrive before it can be processed and ranked. Whereas, results of a traditional search engine are stored in databases of their servers and page rank is pre-determined, thus retrieval time is much quicker.

However, a meta-search engine is able to accomplish more work in a shorter period of time. Since it is quicker to use a meta-search engine than individually visiting mutiple search engines.

Also, we cache results that has already been searched in our server, so when you repeat a search return time should be less than 1 second.

For example, in stead of writing something in the "must contain exact words" box, you can just add "s in the front and the end of a basic search. It may come as a surprise, or not, but not many people know how to use quotes and boolean operators. For some, it may seam complicated therefore they avoid learning the proper ways to search. Advanced search was created for such people.

Plus, who cares where the page is located? Location of a site is determined by the domain it is under, not the physical location. For example, if you select japan only results under the domain ".co.jp" are returned.

[Robert Wellock]

Well, I am on it so something must be right, though I don't know how easy it would be for some people who have poor eyesight with regards to reading the search button.

As for speed it is average to slow for a meta engine.

[DaveSW]

Well I gave it a whirl and searched for my site, emdevelopments.co.uk. Surprise surprise, there are 4 entries all mentioning my site in the link, but all links to profiles in this forum. Was one of them mine? no. Vladdy and Richard1. How strange is that? especially because neither of them have homepages set...

I liked it before I realised that. But it is quite good - I like the advanced search feature.