SITE REVIEW: metacrawler.net

I have put a beta version of my metasearch engine online. It is currently not available under the topdomain name, please follow the link to review.

metacrawler.net

Any sort of input appreciated.

I am kind of confused. Did you code all of that? It went a touch slow for me btw. How did you get so many pages in your search already.. it kind of looks like you're just searching off of search engines, is that what you're doing?

it is a metasearch engine. It gets the results from various search engine, such as google, yahoo, hotbot, alltheweb... after fetching the result, it ranks them and displays the results.

It is a bit slow due to checking so many search engines and fetching the preview pages. When it is ready it should go to a faster server, currently it is on a pentium 3 , 750 mhz.

Well none of your links actually work, so I'm guessing they'll begin working when you finally release the full site. In your footer, what is the "?" before 2004? I have to say that your logo is AWESOME! As for the actual search feature, as mentioned, its slow. But you explained why. The preview thing is absolutely amazing, I really like that idea and it definitely gives your site a slight edge over the other search engines. Dude, you even have archives! Very cool.

The only part I'm not too sure about is opening search result sites in a new window when you click on them. The standard for search engines is just open the links in the same window, mainly because its a search feature. If the user doesnt get what they need, they just use the back button and try again. In this case, they would have to close the window, get back to the screen, then try again. I would rather have it the old way than to have it open in a new window. Either way, I'm definitely bookmarking this site because I'm sure its going far. Great job man.

Excellent feedback. Welcome to Ozzu.

Hi daremedy,

thanks for the review. Very helpful I will change the opening in a new window to the regular search engine style (old way) and will add a open in new window link behind the results.

Most of the other links "directory, search tips..." are not working yet, as I am still working on it. I believe it will take another month or 2 before I will release the final version.

Thanks again for the comments.

that is one sweet site. Out of curiosity, if it's not top-secret.. how are you getting the results from google and other search engines? wouldn't they ban you after too many automated requests from your site?

well, google might do so, as it is against their TOS, but I can switch of google and might do so in the final version (unless I get approval from them). As far as the others are concerned, I didn't find anything yet in their TOS, but I guess first I would need alot of traffic, before any of the big search engine would realise my site.

I think the idea is awesome as well, I think you have a great thing in the works here.

I love the fact the a thumbnail of the site goes along with the search results - nice touch.

I would add a "Previous" and "Next" buttons before and after the pages on the bottom - to give the user an even more conveniant experience.

Overall I like how simple and clean it is - no PPC junk or advertising (except for that one ad on the right of course).

Nice work!

thanks for the review. I will add the "preview" and "next" button with the next update.

The adsense will go, I use it to get indexed on google. I was told that the google bot comes along faster by using adsense. Not sure if this correct.

yeah the colors are great just he only problem really really slow like yeah but pretty good though well done

Not sure what the point is in having links to Ask Jeeves, yahoo, Hot Bot... each search results has these links beneath them - but they only direct you to those sites. I can understand if you linked to those other engines with the original query entered but this way doesn't make much sense.

The thumbs are cool and the Whois/ Alexa/ Info for each result is an interesting twist. But the load time is pretty slow.

Overall - this shows some good promise.

Why did you pick the same name as http://www.metacrawler.com/ ? I'm sure you could have come up with a more original and creative name. What's the purpose of having the same site but with a .net ?

probably to get a number of visitors who think it's the same site...

this is where site site was found in the top rankings for the same keyword.



I have the domain already some time and never did anything with it, just came up with the idea recently. I was also looking for a good name. Any suggestions.

metacrawler.de/co.uk/.com.. exist already and I get some traffic from them on my .net. About 25-35 people a day to be precise. That is not alot.