Recently, Pandia reviewed Kosmix, a web portal and clustering engine rolled into one. We liked what we saw, so we talked to Venky Harinarayan, co-founder of Kosmix to find out more about how they see themselves in the search engine food chain.

Pandia: Kosmix generates “home pages” for themes or queries. This seems like a difficult job for a search engine spider. I’m guessing some semantic analysis is involved? Are there any human editors as well?

Venky Harinarayan: Humans are involved not as editors for individual topics, but to help set up the taxonomy i.e. the categories and how they relate to one another.

At the core of our technology is a sophisticated algorithm-based categorization engine. Our technology combs through billions of Web pages and structured data points to aggregate, categorize and return the most targeted content to users, all of which is done algorithmically.

The difference is in the taxonomy

Pandia: The Kosmix result pages have the feel of directory pages but are in reality an alternative way to present universal search results (result pages that mixes different types of search results, like Google Universal Search).

How does Kosmix stand apart from Google Universal Search, Ask’s 3rd column etc.?

Venky Harinarayan: Google and Ask are approaching this problem as a bolt-on to search. We believe that search should be a small piece of creating useful “home” pages for topics.

The algorithms, technology and user interface required are very different, and we are making big investments to get there. For example, search does not admit to the notion of a taxonomy, except at the highest level – Web Pages, Videos etc.

We believe the biggest value of a topic home page is organization that enables consumers to explore and connect to the relevant content for their specific needs. Taxonomies and categorization are central to this organization.

Pandia: At the moment Kosmix has portals for health, travel and cars. Do you plan to expand your scope? What will be your next additions?

A home page for every topic on the web?

Venky Harinarayan: Our goal from inception was to create a home page for any topic on the web.

Health, autos and travel are the first three testimonies to our technology’s ability as we roll out a horizontal offering that addresses any topic on the Web.

Pandia: And how are are you progressing towards your goal?

Venky Harinarayan:Today, our consumer health site, www.righthealth.com, is in the top three most visited health online information sites according to Hitwise.

www.rightautos.com and www.righttrips.com are in beta and will be fully launched in the coming months.

Pandia: Many search startups are solely technology focused. Do you have a business plan?

Venky Harinarayan: We are very pleased with the strength in our business so far. RightHealth is a top 3 Health Web Site according to Hitwise. We have 10+ million unique visitors every month and our properties together are a top 100 US Web site.

Our business model is advertising based. We provide display advertisers with both fine-grained targeting and real reach, unlike most other sites/ad-networks that can provide either reach or targeting, not both. We have partnerships with other publishers to use our technology and widgets which we will be announcing in the coming months.

Kosmix in the search engine food chain

There are lots of search engines out there. I addition to the Big Three, Charles Knight has counted 227 alternative search engines. Is there room for Kosmix in this eat-or-get-eaten race?

Venky Harinarayan: Today, the world of the Web is changing dramatically. Search engines to date are all about how to search and how to find. There is a new paradigm that we are defining, which is more about organization and connection. Both models work for consumers and are complimentary.

For instance, if you want to look for a single answer question like “fidelity,” a traditional search engine is best and gets you to “fidelity.com.” But, if you want to look for “castles in Barnsely,” a categorization engine like Kosmix serves you better. If you don’t want to get lost in a lot of links and want to have a view of everything in one place, a Kosmix topics page would be best for you.