January 11 2001

The new Sprawlnet search engine

There is a new search engine in town. Not just another metasearch engine fetching data from other search engines either, but a truly new search engine index.

Sprawlnet claims that is developing a content-driven index that will be able to learn from the user's search activity. It is in the preliminary beta stage of its development right now. Nevertheless, logged on users may participate in the compilation of Sprawlnet's database.

Using artificial intelligence and database tracking, Sprawlnet registers what people search for and the choices they make from the results. The more they search, the "smarter" the search engine gets, according to Sprawlnet.

Logged on users are identified on the basis of various demographic and geographical criteria. Each user is placed within one of four groups, initially differentiated by age, and presented with a home page specific to their age group. Each search initiated by a logged on user allows Sprawlnet to compare and contrast the user with others in his or her demographic group. This information is then used to identify which Web listings are most appropriate for each logged on user.

Sprawlnet compares its "learning search engine" to a learning child: "Just like a child is being educated, as it gathers more and more information, the engine combines the information retrieved with a recognition of the person asking the question, providing an answer that is best suited to that person."

This is not the first time a search engine is measuring click-through popularity of links -- even Yahoo! does that now -- but to our knowledge this is the first time this measurement is connected to an individual or group.

No doubt, this kind of classification will also make it easier to target advertising.

Does it work? As the search engine is in its beta testing stage, it is far to early to tell, actually. Our preliminary test indicate that it does indeed give relevant results, but whether these are more relevant to us personally or to our age-group is hard to say.

It is an interesting concept, though, which may work out. Some would say that mandatory registering would stop some searchers from using the search engine. Still, you may opt out from further mailings, and the site's privacy policy is quite strict. If Sprawlnet truly succeeds in generating more relevant results, it might stand a chance. The success of newcomer Google proves that.

The search engine has been given a very colourful comic book appearance, and is obviously preparing an offensive trying to catch the young segment of Internet surfers. That might not be such a bad idea. Given that they register the age of surfers, pages aimed at an older audience may be given a more sober appearance, if that turns out to be necessary.

The search engine opens up with a simple search form and presents the results in a separate frame on the main page. You may select three hits for previewing, meaning that these pages can be presented in three separate frames. We are not sure if this is such a good idea. You really need a large screen to make sense out of seeing such small portions of webpages.

You may then click to view one of these pages, which are opened in a larger frame on the right hand side of the browser window. The Sprawler navigation bar remains at the left side. There is no way you can remove this bar, which means that you are trapped in the Sprawler frame set. You can avoid this problem, however, by clicking directly on the relevant link in the result list, just as you would in any other search engine.

The advanced search options are rudimentary and form-based. It seems you cannot use Boolean operators or search engine maths (+, - and "phrases") at the moment. That being said, the simplicity of the search form has a certain beauty. You enter your search key words in one or more of the following search fields:

• Important search keyword(s)
• Required search keyword(s) (equals Boolean AND or +)
• Excluded search keyword(s) (equals Boolean AND NOT or -)
• Other search keyword(s)

We could not find a proper help file, though.

We will come back to Sprawlnet to see if the search engine fulfills promise. However, it is good to see that there are someone out there that dares to take an innovative approach to Internet searching.

• Sprawlnet
• About Sprawlnet
• More about Sprawlnet
• Sprawlnet intro splash screen

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