Omgili: a New Spin on a Web 2.0 Search Engine - Other Omgili Features
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I mentioned in the previous section that Omgili included a list of related searches at the bottom of my search results. If you're not sure whether your own choice of search terms is the best, Omgili Search Aid does the same thing. Let me show you a screen shot of an Omgili Search Aid search I did for "best laptop."
At first glance, this is not a big deal. But look to the right of each listing. You'll see links for Google and Yahoo in addition to Search Aid. In other words, you can take that search and perform it on one of the major search engines in just one click. Omgili's Search Aid may have potential as a keyword discovery tool. Remember the kinds of sites Omgili crawls; these are the actual words that people use to talk about particular things. Good to know? You bet.
Let's take a look at Omgili Product Reviews now. I'm going to stick with the topic of laptops. Here's a screen shot of my result, with the ads at the top and sides cropped:
The results included laptop parts, not just laptops, unfortunately. On the other hand, the slider is really cool once you understand how it works. Just below the link you see a statement of how many reviews the item got, and the average rating the item received. The slider breaks it down by number of and type of review. You can get that information explicitly by hovering over each colored triangle on the slider.
For example, the Apple PowerBook at the top received 244 reviews. Hovering over each triangle on the slider next to it brings up tooltips that tell me it has received five miserable reviews, six bad reviews, 15 moderate reviews, 88 good reviews and 130 excellent reviews. If I click on the red triangle, Omgili gives me the links to those five miserable reviews; the same thing holds for each of the other triangles.
Well, I want more information about the PowerBook, so I click on the link. It takes me to a page that links to all the reviews, with the numbers on the left, so I can tell going in whether I'm about to read a rave review or a raving review.
Finally, what's Google@Omgili all about? When you click to this option, you get a special search box that gives you three options: "Just Google," "Just Omgili" or "Search Both." As you might expect when you search both, you get a page that pulls up Google's and Omgili's results for the query side by side. But you also get something more. Take a look at the screen shot below of Google's side of the results for a search on "laptops."
Look at the purple dialog balloons on the left. They contain links to discussions about particular results. It's an interesting concept, and I can certainly see how some users might find this information useful. In this particular case, though, I didn't.
If you're interested in finding out what people are saying about particular topics, Omgili may be worth using. Most of the time, however, I felt like I was wading through a lot of noise to find a signal. I give the search engine kudos for their product review service; the slider is really handy for telling you at a glance what a lot of people thought of a particular product. I could see myself using Omgili for product searches, and it might be useful for keyword recommendations, but otherwise I don't think it will change my search habits.
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