New search engines giving consumers more options

Aug/25/2008 03:29
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Google is so far ahead of other search engines that it has become a verb for people searching the Web. The problem however for people searching the Web for health information is that it's very easy to quickly get overwhelmed with information. Where do you start and which sites are the best for my needs? Well two new search engines are betting that there is room for improvement and while they are still in the early stages of development they look very promising.

The newest search engine to hit the online world is search me.com. This is a very unique search engine because your search results are presented in stacks with pages from the website so that you can look at each website to determine if it's a site you want to visit.

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For example a quick query for Enbrel displays several pages from the Enbrel.com website as well as pages from other websites both on Enbrel and related medical conditions. You have the option to save the stack to your computer as well so that you don't have go back and research if you're not happy with the information you have seen.

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Also in search me a quick navigation bar at the top can help narrow your search to pharmacies, lawyers, the government, insurance and conditions. Search me is still in beta but it promises to really change the search landscape as we know it.

The other newcomer on the block is cuil.com. While not as dynamic as search me it has some great user interfaces that allows you to explore search options by category. I also like it because it is easier to read.


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Will these new search engines take off? Well that depends on the back end technology they use to list sites. Currently Google has set the standard for web crawlers and their technology is a closely guarded secret but I am betting that as these new search engines progress they will find a following. This means that DTC marketers may have to expand search engine budgets but with newcomers on the block they may get a better deal with more ROI.

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