There’s a new search engine in the market, and some people are calling it the “Google Killer.” Blekko launched today. It allows consumers to use slashtags to specify which sites they want to search, and lets marketers gain a deeper understanding of their sites with abundant SEO tools.
The idea behind Blekko is to cut the spam in web results using slashtags to search a subset of sites. Blekko automatically applies slashtags to queries in various sectors, including health, colleges, finance, hotels and more. Additionally, users can create their own slashtags to refine results.
Rich Skrenta, CEO of Blekko, explains, “as the number of URLs on the web increases from billions to trillions, it will take a layer of human oversight to separate the trusted content from the spam.”
While this is good for searchers, it means marketers who want their sites to appear in Blekko search results must ensure that they offer consumers relevant, quality content on the web. Businesses can see how their sites rack up thanks to SEO data offered within search results.
Under each Blekko result, there is an SEO link. Clicking this link – on a search for “Blekko,” for example – offers insight on the inbound links, crawl stats, site pages and duplicate content for a site. It also includes a site comparison tool for competitive information. Interested marketers can download the Blekko toolbar to view SEO data in real time.
As wondrous as this information sounds, it remains to be seen whether Blekko’s data will be useful in providing a big-picture overview for businesses, and whether Blekko will succeed in the search market and continue to provide this insight.
The latest comScore search engine rankings reveal that Blekko has a long way to go if it hopes to catch up to the likes of Google and Bing. Google accounted for 66.1 percent of explicit core searches in September, while Microsoft and Yahoo sites powered by Bing represented 27.9 percent of the search market.
