Yahoo! Mindset: “View Yahoo! Search results sorted according to whether they are more commercial or more informational (i.e., from academic, non-commercial, or research-oriented sources).”
I really like this one! Type in your search and Yahoo! Mindset gives you the first 10 results with a slider bar at the top of the page. At one end of the bar is “shopping” and at the other “researching”. You start off in the middle and can slide the bar in either direction to change the emphasis.
A test search on ‘gin vodka sales UK’ actually came up with a good result at number 1 with the slider in the middle – the Gin and Vodka Association (yes, there really is one and the site has some good statistics!). Moving the slider towards ‘researching’ started to move the Gin & Vodka Association down the list but brought in equally interesting data I might otherwise have missed. As expected, moving the slider towards ‘shopping’ brought up sites selling gin and/or vodka, books on Amazon telling me how to make gin and vodka cocktails and a site with the wonderful name of Dinky Drinks!
More research orientated strategies such as ‘climate change’ and ‘hubbert peak oil’ were not as varied and the shopping side was more about books on the subject. What they did highlight, though, was that shifting the bar in either direction significantly altered the results that appeared in the top 10 and presented pages that one might not have normally seen.
Highly recommended.
Hey Karen, that is a true innovation that reflects your intention as a searcher and it potentially puts Yahoo! ahead of Google. Not simply ‘relevance’ but intention and wants. Must whirrl it.
Hi Geoff, my original posting was made in 2005 and Mindset is *still* a ‘test bed’ area 🙁 . I really wish that they would offer it as part of their mainstream interface. As you say, it addresses ‘intention and wants’
Karen