Wikia Search

On December 23, 2006, Wales made a passing comment regarding the possibility of a wiki-based internet search.{{cite web|last=Doran|first=James|url=http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9075-2517026,00.html|title=Founder of Wikipedia plans search engine to rival Google|work=The Times|location=London|date=December 23, 2006|access-date=January 6, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061227024801/http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9075-2517026,00.html|archive-date=December 27, 2006|url-status=dead|df=mdy-all}} The result was extensive media coverage in multiple languages, in outlets like The Guardian, the Sydney Morning Herald, and online editions of Forbes and Business Week publishing the statement as an announcement, encouraging the company to re-brand and relaunch its previous search engine proposal under the temporary name of "Search Wikia".{{Cite web |url=http://search.wikia.com/wiki/search:About |title=About search |access-date=January 10, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071121071952/http://search.wikia.com/wiki/search:About |archive-date=November 21, 2007 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }} In a later interview, Wales attempted to clarify several issues. He said that funding received from Amazon.com was not specific to the search project and also restated that Wikia and Wikipedia have separate management, even though they shared three key stakeholders. When asked whether the project was "formally announced", he said it was partly planned and partly a response to news coverage.{{cite web|url=http://searchengineland.com/061229-193718.php|title=Q&A With Jimmy Wales On Search Wikia|publisher=Search Engine Land|date=December 29, 2006|access-date=June 1, 2018}}

On January 31, 2007, at a talk given at New York University, Wales announced that Wikia plans to build a search engine rivaling those of Google and Yahoo based on the kind of collaborative cooperation which has been so successful in developing Wikipedia, arguing that "search should be open, transparent, participatory, and democratic."[http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=197003494 Wales: Search Wikia Will Succeed Where Google Cannot], InformationWeek, February 5, 2007. Retrieved July 27, 2007. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080307135723/http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=197003494 |date=March 7, 2008 }} He later suggested this new approach could account for five percent of the search market.[https://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUST34811320070308 Wikipedia founder says to challenge Google, Yahoo], Reuters, March 8, 2007. Retrieved June 1, 2018. On March 10, 2007, Gil Penchina, chief executive officer of Wikia, stated in an interview that the goal for the project is to get five percent of the search market and that a release date for services was not scheduled. "We're really trying to build a movement to make search free and open and transparent," Penchina said. "We have some servers up and people are hacking away." The free and open-source approach of utilizing programmers and users around the world is different from that used by major search providers such as Google and Yahoo, who keep most of their code secret, and could provide a search engine that lets users edit and fine tune its results.Jonathan Thaw, [https://web.archive.org/web/20070313190103/http://www.insidebayarea.com/business/ci_5406665 Wikia plans editable Web search engine], Bloomberg News, March 10, 2007

On December 24, 2007, Wales announced that Wikia Search had entered "private pre-alpha".{{cite web |url=http://lists.wikia.com/pipermail/search-l/2007-December/000845.html |title=private pre-alpha invites available |access-date=December 24, 2007 |last=Wales |first=Jimmy |date=December 24, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071228033511/http://lists.wikia.com/pipermail/search-l/2007-December/000845.html |archive-date=December 28, 2007 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }}{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/24/AR2007122401567.html |title=Wikia Search Project to Launch January 7, Wales says |access-date=June 1, 2018 |date=December 24, 2007 |newspaper=The Washington Post}}

On June 3, 2008, an upgraded version of Wikia Search was released with additional features such as improved screen display and facilities for users to rate, edit and enhance the search results. In particular, it offered users the possibility of adding pertinent URLs to the results displayed and deleting any misleading results with immediate effect.[http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/109092 Wikia Search opens its doors, Heise Online], June 6, 2008. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080610023311/http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/109092 |date=June 10, 2008 }} The improvements were widely welcomed by a number of former critics.{{Cite web |url=http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9093278 |title=Second Wikia Search version gets backing from former critics, Computer World, June 4, 2008 |access-date=June 5, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080605122602/http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9093278 |archive-date=June 5, 2008 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }}

In August 2008 Wikia Search launched an official version of the Wikia toolbar that can be downloaded and added on to the Firefox browser. In October 2008, WISE – Wikia Intelligent Search Extensions{{Cite web |url=http://search.wikia.com/wiki/Wikia_Intelligent_Search_Extensions |title=Search.wikia.com |access-date=October 18, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081011083904/http://search.wikia.com/wiki/Wikia_Intelligent_Search_Extensions |archive-date=October 11, 2008 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }} was released.

By August 2008, Wikia Search held a 0.000079% share of the search market in the U.S., compared with Google's 70.77%.[http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/081908-wikia-search-cuil-trailing-google.html Wikia Search, Cuil trailing Google by a long shot], Network World, August 19, 2008 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080821205452/http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/081908-wikia-search-cuil-trailing-google.html |date=August 21, 2008 }} While Google was conducting experiments with page ranking based on user feedback around this time, Jimmy Wales stated that Google's random tests and its closed algorithm were different from the open, community-oriented crowdsourcing attempts of Wikia Search.{{cite news |first=Clint |last=Boulton |url=http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Search-Engines/Google-Search-Ranking-Feature-Threatens-Wikia-Search/ |title=Google Search Ranking Feature Threatens Wikia Search |work=eWeek |publisher=Ziff Davis Media |date=August 28, 2008 |access-date=June 1, 2018}} In March 2009, the project ended: "... Wikia Search was not making its numbers. With only 10,000 unique users a month over the past six months, Wales said, it was hard to justify the resources being put into it."[http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10207896-2.html Wales giving up on Wikia Search]

As of April 16, 2009, the site was running, but with "So long and thanks for all the fish! Have a specific question? Try wikianswers!" near the bottom of the page. Finally on May 14, 2009, the search engine service was brought to a halt. Queries to the Wikia Search website were redirected, with a message in part stating "The Wikia Search project has ended."

The search engine's result pages provided access to three major components:

• a web search engine,
• a social network service and
• a wiki, which hosts so-called mini-articles

A prominent feature of the search engine were the human-written mini articles.

Mini articles were short articles about the topics given by their title.

They were hosted by a Wikia wiki.

Whenever a search query is issued with mini in front, the results page looked in the wiki for a mini article with a name that matched the search query. If no matching article existed, the search user was given the opportunity to write a new one.

The user interface was tied in with a social network application, called "foowi".{{Cite web |url=http://svn.swlabs.org/foowi/ |title=Svn.swlabs.org |access-date=May 12, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080328184007/http://svn.swlabs.org/foowi/ |archive-date=March 28, 2008 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }} Users could create an account for the application and fill in a profile. The system linked the wiki login to the social network login.

Profile functions include Status, Basic profile, White board, Albums, Friends, Personal and Work.

The web search engine consisted of the following components:

• Crawler(s) (Grub),
• Indices, the search engine proper (three selectable indices, by default an index that uses Nutch)
• and browser based results presentation (written in JavaScript language)

The results presentation used XML-formatted requests to query the index. The XML format is called "Open Index{{Cite web |url=http://search.wikia.com/wiki/Tech/Open_Index |title=Search.wikia.com |access-date=May 12, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080428034811/http://search.wikia.com/wiki/Tech/Open_Index |archive-date=April 28, 2008 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }} and can be used to query indices other than the one at Internet Systems Consortium (ISC).

The results presentation once included an option to select a different index to be used (out of three).

In early 2009, Yahoo! BOSS was being used as the back-end.{{Cite web |url=http://n2.nabble.com/Cooperation--td2305305.html |title=N2.nabble.com |access-date=February 14, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090217192248/http://n2.nabble.com/Cooperation--td2305305.html |archive-date=February 17, 2009 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }}

The servers that implemented the web search engine's default index{{Cite web |url=http://not-quite-ready-yet.index.swlabs.org/ |title=Not-quite-ready-yet.index.swlabs.org |access-date=May 12, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110728075535/http://not-quite-ready-yet.index.swlabs.org/ |archive-date=July 28, 2011 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }} were owned and operated by the ISC.{{cite web|last=Jonas|first=Trevor|url=http://www.businesswire.com/news/google/20080107005632/en|title=Wikia, Jimmy Wales Unveil First Public Alpha of Open Source Search Project|publisher=BusinessWire.com|date=January 7, 2008|access-date=May 10, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110606004843/http://www.businesswire.com/news/google/20080107005632/en|archive-date=June 6, 2011|url-status=dead|df=mdy-all}}

Although the index servers were donated to ISC, the index server's domain name still remains that of the Wikia Search software labs,{{Cite web |url=http://swlabs.org/ |title=Swlabs.org |access-date=May 12, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080416193256/http://www.swlabs.org/ |archive-date=April 16, 2008 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }}The JavaScript [http://re.search.wikia.com/search-a3.js code that fetches search results from the index server]{{dead link|date=June 2018 }} directly refers to the [http://not-quite-ready-yet.index.swlabs.org/ current index servers]. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110728075535/http://not-quite-ready-yet.index.swlabs.org/ |date=July 28, 2011 }} The search engine's main page{{Cite web |url=http://re.search.wikia.com/index.html |title=Re.search.wikia.com |access-date=October 18, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081016044122/http://re.search.wikia.com/index.html |archive-date=October 16, 2008 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }} and result pages{{Cite web |url=http://re.search.wikia.com/search |title=Re.search.wikia.com |access-date=May 12, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080407215620/http://re.search.wikia.com/search#foobar |archive-date=April 7, 2008 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }} themselves were served by Wikia (note that the result pages' content was retrieved from the index server at swlabs.org, not from wikia.com).

The social network, like the results presentation, was hosted by Wikia.

Search Wikia,{{Cite web |url=http://searchwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Search_Wikia |title=Searchwiki.wikia.com |access-date=November 30, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100205181934/http://searchwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Search_Wikia |archive-date=February 5, 2010 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }} the wiki which hosted the mini articles, is hosted by Wikia. The wiki's content is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL).{{Cite web |url=http://search.wikia.com/wiki/search:Copyrights |title=The copyrights page of Search Wikia |access-date=May 12, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080517125821/http://search.wikia.com/wiki/search:Copyrights |archive-date=May 17, 2008 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }}

Although formally owned by Wikia, Wikia's management have stated that they want the wiki's user community to govern the wiki,{{cite mailing list

|last=Beesley

|first=Angela

|title=Re: Mandate

|mailing-list=searchwiki

|date=February 4, 2008

|url=http://lists.wikia.com/pipermail/searchwiki/2008-February/000101.html

|access-date=May 12, 2008 }}{{dead link|date=June 2018}} as is custom with Wikia wikis in general.

{{Portal|Internet}}

• Knowledge Engine (Wikimedia Foundation) – an internal search engine for Wikimedia Foundation projects

{{-}}

{{reflist|30em}}

• [http://search.wikia.com Search Wikia] ({{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080302100923/http://search.wikia.com/wiki/Search_Wikia |date=March 2, 2008 }})
• [https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/01/technology/01wales.html "Something Wiki Is Coming to the Web Search Market"], The New York Times.com, January 1, 2007  – about Wikiasari, an upcoming search engine
• Leap of Faith: Wikia's new search engine relies on the human touch to outsmart Google. Does it stand a chance? Martin Miller, Los Angeles Times Magazine, March 2, 2008, pp. 36–40.
• Evans, W. [http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/nbReader.asp?ArticleId=40606 "We Find It All: Wikia's New Social Search Engine"], Information Today, Inc., January 8, 2008.

{{Wikia topics}}

Category:Internet properties disestablished in 2009

Category:Internet properties established in 2004

Category:Defunct internet search engines

Category:Social search

Category:Fandom (website)

Category:Human-edited search engines

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