Not another Search Engine, Scour Social Search Scores High!

Exactly a month ago today, Scour, the new meta search engine went live. It continues to soar and score high points from its users unlike Cuil, the other search engine who took the blogosphere by storm and promised a bunch of things and failed to deliver. That just shows that just because the brains behind the site are ex-Google honchos doesn’t mean they can compete with the god of search herself, Google- head on.

Scour on the other hand, didn’t promise anything. As stated on their About page, its mission is simple: “to bridge the gap between searchers and relevant results… to provide users with the most relevant results available by providing a platform for searchers to vote on relevancy, share their feedback and connect with one another creating a true social search community.”

That’s more like it. Unimposing. They didn’t do much talking and allowed its users handle the raving. We waited before the initial launch publicity is over before jumping on the train. We registered as member today to test it and we are very impressed!

Scour’s makeup is very similar to Google. It shows the search bar with the option to choose web, images, or video results. It’s keyword typing also auto-suggests as you type. It’s results show Sponsored links at the top and on the sidebar and clearly noted as that, sponsored links.

The search functionality is superior and at par with the gods’ Google, Yahoo and MSN search. It’s results are highly reliable and relevant. It’s amazing how they were able to get the nods of the big 3 search engines as  Scour uses the very search results of these three.

It could very well replace any or all of your toolbars currently installed on your browser! We just did! There’s no need for a separate Google, Yahoo, or MSN search toolbar- Scour eliminates that because when you search Scour, it gives out the results from the big 3 easy.

If that’s not enough, Scour beyond being a search engine is a social community and its search results are human powered. It empowers members to discover searches through the feedback mechanism and their friends on the network. As a member you have a say on what’s a relevant search result and what’s not. When you type a keyword search, you get to vote thumbs up or thumbs down to each of the results plus you get to comment!! How nifty is that?!

In the end, the more a particular search is voted down by members, the lower it gets in the ranking and eventually will rid of it appearing on the search altogether. Similarly, the more a search result is voted up by members, its ranking will go up making it more searchable by others and ultimately make it more usable and relevant to users.

Our true test is searching one of the most widely spammed keyword in the internet: VIAGRA. yes, that “miracle” drug for Erectile Dysfunction. We thought, ok what could Scour find about Viagra? The results were quite good! No obvious spam sites on the first 10 results. Are those members working or what?!

Convinced yet? Here’s a real incentive for using Scour. It rewards you for what you already do! Sounds like cliche we know, and sounds like you’ve heard the pitch too many times but this is true for Scour and it just makes real sense especially for search addicts like us at Blogs that Follow.

Every time we’re on our computers, we make 10 to 15 searches in one sitting in all possible keyword combinations. We do the search via Google, find our results and click away. End of the story. With Scour, we will do our regular 10 to 15 searches, find the results and click away. But hey, we have a say on the results! We get to vote the result up or down in terms of relevancy and if we like or dislike the result, we can even leave a comment! On top of it, we EARN POINTS translating into cash later.

According to the Business wire press release: People can earn up to 4 points per search through a combination of actions:

• Search – 1 point
• Vote – 2 points
• Comment – 3 points
• Friend Referral – 25% of each friend’s points

We don’t understand why other users frown on the incentives just because it takes 6,500 to make $25.00. They complain, “that’s too high! That will take forever to accomplish.” Sometimes, most of the bloggers forget to look at the BIG picture. We’ve been searching for the longest time without incentives at all from Google, Yahoo or MSN. We just continue to use the search engines anyway. Here’s one company offering a better way to search and reward us on the side. Then people whine.

The incentives Scour is giving we think is just icing on the cake. The real gem is being able to finally get relevant and useful results with the help of a community changing the way we get our search results. No more PAID immaterial links appearing on the top results! (Well, except for the sponsored sites but that’s how the site survives and gives back a part of it to its users!)

Yomtobian, the genius behind Scour says, “We’re not trying to provide users with an alternative income, the Scour points program is a way for Scour to reward the user for helping build the community to refine search results beyond what the algorithms say.” Well said.

There are other issues like its platform being open for abuse or how members can manipulate results and such or how to get your rewards, limitations etc. Scour tries to answer them in their FAQs and blog. Visit the site for more information.

Don’t take our or Scour’s word for it. Try it and see if it suits your needs!