Blekko can score as a search engine though an attempt has been made to tout its social networking abilities. This scoring is done by its professed ability to junk out the spam sites, which are proliferating the web. The approach is refreshingly new. Instead of the standard search engine methodology of key words and algorithms the approach here is to use the human touch. Boasting about being human friendly why use the name Blekko when it sound so close to gecko?
The search engine works by going to “create a slashtag” which is placed below your profile ID. Then proceed to name the slashtag, or add keywords or sites on the green box and click the similar colored add button.
Blekko uses slash tags in the space, which Google uses for displaying news, images and ads associated with it. Using it to find sites is impressive as it has the ability to elicit the correct information that is needed. “Slashtag these results” link is found to the right of the search results and gives you the opportunity to create slashtags for the results you have obtained while it has several fields already pre populated. Newly created slash tags can also linked be linked to Twitter, a Vimeo link to view video and many more.
Blekko also has “Global” as well as “Chatter” pages, which display messages and gives you slash tag updates. You can speed access a site by clicking “find slashtags” or do a search. Yet they seem an extra process when you simply want to get some information.
Below the titles of the web pages elicited by Blekko are links, which are directed to an SEO for conveniently checking the rank of a site and checking what other inbound links are available, with a place for leaving feedback on a particular site. Flagging a site, as unwanted spam is a feature placed right alongside which obliterates the site to you. Of course the spam so designated can be withdrawn any time.
Having said this the overall search results are not exhilarating. Some results gives you doubtful links right up at the start page which in Google can be in the 124th page. Important sites such as Wikipedia end up in the 124th page in Blekko where as it should probably be in the first.
Bottom line for Blekko?
Blekko’s goals are noble in wanting to improve results of web searches. What has been missed out is that people love simplicity, which is what the current king of the search engine road Google has kept supreme. Some of the features unfortunately even work to obscure results which otherwise would have been well elicited. More work is needed before Blekko could even think of beginning to nudge Google from its place.