Here are six brief descriptions of alt search engines. Below them are their six logos, but not in the same order. Print this page and write in the correct letter for each alt. See the answers Monday!

Here are the Answers:

    1. yubnub is a command-line for the web, you can make a new command by giving yubnub an appropriate URL. On a practical note, I was tired of setting up the same FireFox keywords on each of the 5 computers that I use. By putting my keywords into yubnub, I can hit “am mark twain” for an Amazon search, or “gmap vancouver” for a Google Maps search, no matter which computer I’m on. But on a bigger scale, yubnub is the realization of a very big idea: the URL command line of the web OS.

 2. sidekiq Your favorite search site may not be the best one for video, audio, social bookmarks, finance, entertainment, employment, health care, real estate & travel. Get instant results from your favorite search site + other top search sites at once. Get all the search power with no plugins/add-ons install, no activex, no headaches.

3. decipho filters search results by user preferences and tags. By doing this users have the ability to narrow keyword searches by tags given by other users and themselves. When the results come back, it only displays websites within a search that were given the tag news by other users. The Community Tags link next to the displayed search results allow users to view all of the tags given for a particular website as well as a percentage breakdown of how many times someone tagged a website a certain tag-word. At the bottom it will show the breakdown of tags used for a particular keyword search.

 4. The power of Mooter is that it employs a combination of analysis methods to predict a user’s interests and intentions. These profiles can then be utilized by Mooter’s multi-dimensional targeting algorithms to select the most relevant advertisement for that user, either listings, rich media or display. It does this by using a combination of proprietary algorithms, a process known as ‘Mooterization.’

 5.The results that factbites generates are still extracts from web pages, but they are of far higher quality than the summaries that main stream web search engines provide. By focusing the technology on passages that make statements about the topic being searched for, the user experiences a far richer response. It should be noted that this type of interface has the potential to change the way in which searches are performed as the search engine is now doing more of the heavy lifting and is not trying to guess the intention of the user.

6. Lurpo . When you build a CSE, you get to add a number of options to it and when you submit your CSE to our site, you still have full control over how it operates. More importantly, you can tie your CSE into your Google AdSense account and make money with it! If your CSE gets a lot of use, you could find yourself making a good bit of money from it. By submitting it to our site, your CSE will get more use and you’ll make more money. The more people that use Lurpo, the better it is for everyone!

  On Sundays, we look at religious search engines.  Last week was the official Vatican search engine.  Today, its a Buddhist search engine from the Western Chan Fellowship.  Chan is the Chinese ancestor of Zen Buddhism. The Western Chan Fellowship is an association of lay Chan practitioners, based in the UK. Their zen retreats and other activities are open equally to both Buddhists and non-Buddhists.

Next week we’ll check out another religious alternative.  Do you have any suggestions? Charles@ReadWriteWeb.com