Wiki Founder Targets Google

The founder of the worlds leading online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, is preparing to take on the worlds leading search engine, Google.

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales says his upcoming search engine - codenamed Wikiasari - will use the same user-driven technologies as Wikipedia, which allows anyone with an internet connection to create and edit entries.

Mr Wales said this focus on human judgment was far more effective than using computer algorithms such as those adopted by Google.

"Google is very good at many types of search, but in many instances it produces nothing but spam and useless crap," he told the Times Online.

"Try searching for the term Tampa hotels, for example, and you will not get any useful results."

In deciding how high up a particular link appears on a search query, Googles algorithms rank sites based on how many other websites link to it.

Mr Wales approach, however, is to use the method that has to date proved so successful for Wikipedia - let humans pick the sites that are most relevant to particular queries.

"We just look at the page. It usually only takes a second to figure out if the page is good, so the key here is building a community of trust that can do that," Times Online quoted Mr Wales as saying.

But while this approach may increase the relevance of search results, as with all user-driven web initiatives, it would open the service up to unintended manipulation.

Wikipedia, for example, has come under fire on numerous occasions this year for plagiarism and publishing inaccurate information. This sort of vandalism is difficult to remove until after it has been spotted by other users.

It is unclear how Mr Wales plans to deter vandals who would seek to manipulate Wikiasaris search rankings, but the incentive to do so is undoubtedly present.

Many websites receive a significant portion of their visitors from search engine referrals, and entire businesses have been created with the sole purpose of helping website owners optimise their search rankings.

The project is scheduled to publicly launch next year, aided in part by financial backing from online retailer Amazon. But despite being an investor, Amazon will not be involved in developing or running the search engine.

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