Keywords plus topics may be a better way to search, at least the people behind Dumbfind.com think so.
I wonder if you look someone up on Dumbfind and locate information about them, if you can say they were Dumbfounded? Maybe not. Anyway, Dumbfind offers keyword searching, just like other search engines do.
Below the keyword box, Dumbfind has placed a topics box. This lets the user define context for the search, rather than trusting the search engine to divine it from a single search term. Adding words to a query to get better results isn’t a new idea; people just put all the terms in a single box on sites like Yahoo or Google now.
Aesthetically, it’s a nice organizational change. So we’ll test it out with a simple word that has a couple of pronunciations and meanings. Search result pages come back organized by domain, with a given number of subresults for that domain if they are available.
Our test search gives us a smattering of bass fishing and bass guitar results, along with a New Hampshire Congressman and a link to one of the finest beverages on the planet. On the left side of the page, contextual PPC ads delivered by Searchfeed.com appear.
Giving the term the topic “fishing” in a new search retrieves a first page of results exclusively devoted to bass fishing. The contextual ads seem focused on the keywords only, though, as the same ads appear as in the search for just bass.
The site says it is a beta 3 version. A press release notes the company behind the engine was formed in 2003 by Chris Seline, identified only as a graduate of Johns Hopkins. The release refers to Dumbfind as an “intuition-driven” search engine.
David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.
