ExactSeek – Emphasizing User Popularity Over Link Popularity

October 22, 2003 By +Loren Baker, see all posts by Loren Baker

Interesting article on Search and User Popularity:

Is site traffic more important than link popularity?

I just learned of a new search engine that actually uses a combination of content relevancy and user popularity to determine rankings. It’s called ExactSeek.com.

How does ExactSeek measure user popularity? The engine has teamed up with Alexa, which offers a toolbar that measures activity on the Web. By measuring the surfing activity of millions of Alexa users, ExactSeek is able to determine the user popularity and relevancy of Web sites in its index. User popularity is a far more reliable indicator of where Web sites should rank and gives users some input on the search results they see.

Mel Strocen, CEO of Jayde Online, which is the parent company of ExactSeek, says:

“Alexa traffic data will be a strong factor in the ExactSeek ranking algorithm but not the dominant factor, that being page content. Essentially, we’ve opted to emphasize user popularity over link popularity.”