Surf
Canyon Offers to Fuel Search Engines
If
you think your search engine searches everything except what you want,
Surf Canyon offers a helping hand – believe it or not. It has released
version 2.0 of its search enhancement application, which uses a
patents-pending technology to simplify your web search experience.
It says
that since its release in February 2008, over 400,000 people have
downloaded the Surf Canyon software.
As web
search is increasingly becoming a major headache for Internet users,
companies are trying to improve their search technologies. Of late, even
leader
Google offered a refinement to its site
search option by adding something called On-Demand Indexing.
Surf
Canyon's new version features personalization, which allows users to
both specify preferred domains and block domains they dislike. Pages
from preferred domains are automatically moved up in the Surf
Canyon-enhanced list of search results and pages from disliked domains
are removed. No longer are searchers required to contend with generic
"one size fits all" search engine responses, explains the company.
The new
version also offers enhanced performance and advanced search
personalization algorithms aimed to further improve users' search
experiences. A new "Odometer" will offer a metric, called "Search
Boost," designed to help users understand the "mileage" and value
they're getting from Surf Canyon.
"We're
constantly refining our search technology to enable increasingly
accurate inferences of searchers' 'at the moment' intent, but our basic
philosophy hasn't changed: deliver real value, integrate transparently
into the search experience, and require no learning curve or effort
whatsoever on the part of our users," said Mark Cramer, CEO of Surf
Canyon.
Surf
Canyon, says the company, works with commonly used search engines,
including Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft Live and Craigslist, and integrates
seamlessly into Firefox and Internet Explorer.
Surf
Canyon develops something called Discovery for Search. The company says
this patent-pending technology is embedded in a browser extension that
can work with virtually any third-party search engine, and assists users
in finding relevant information that's buried within the often
overwhelming amount of search results.
The
company is headquartered in Oakland, CA and was founded in 2006.
