MYRIAD SEARCH Example Page / How it Works

Myriad Search is a showcase platform for an SEO tool I created by the name of Authority Finder. You can read more background on that tool / concept here.

Myriad Search is a meta search service which aims to find the most authoritative results for any topic by comparing the search results from the major engines.

Brief Overview Video

The NYIT Library created a free Myriad Search demonstration video.

How it Works ... piece by piece

Search: Just like most any other search service Myriad Search has a search box.

When you enter a query Myriad Search requests the search results from each of the major global search engines. Myriad Search then assigns authority scores for each listed page based on where it ranked in each of the major search engines.

The CSV button is for CSV export of results after they are returned. That functionality can be useful for selling market research data.

Result Depth, Duplicates, Google API:

Results / Depth: By default the result depth is limited to 10 search results. You can adjust the results to grab from 10 to 50 search results from each engine.

Authority Scoring: A number 1 ranking in any engine is worth the number of results you brought back from each engine. Each position below #1 is worth 1 less than the result above it. Example values

• #1 position with 20 results per engine = 20 points
• #12 position with 30 results per engine = 19 points
• #3 position with 50 results per engine = 48 points

Thus your search depth has an effect on overall relevancy. If you search shallow (10 results per engine) you place more emphasis on the top few results. If you search deep (50 results per engine) you place more emphasis on lower ranked sites that are listed in multiple engines.

The points are summed up and the results are divided by the total number of possible points and the results are sorted in order of relevancy score in percent.

Duplicates per Engine: Due to Ask's local community clustering algorithms it is not uncommon for a single site to be listed 5 or more times in the top 50 search results. Limiting the number of duplicate results helps limit the effect of one engine casting multiple votes for a single site.

Google Key: Google's API limits the daily usage to 1,000 queries per person per day. There is a default key in the tool, but after 1,000 daily uses you will be required to enter a unique API key.

Bias, Exclude, Require, Database Size:

Bias: Some search engines are more relevant for certain query types, while other engines perform well on different query types. Using a positive bias can help you place more weight on relevant engines and negative bias places less weight on the irrelevant results.

Another biasing option is to excluded irrelevant, and you can also require that results are listed in the most relevant engines to appear in the end results.

Brian Turner recently wrote:

• Google - recent spam filtering moves over the past year or so has damaged relevancy, and their restrictive view of newer domains is pretty short-sighted. Google has superb technology and information retrieval is still great, but it is more and more unable to properly deliver new and useful information, because it appears too retentive on issues of preventing manipulation, rather than focusing on more general relevancy;
• Yahoo! still has problems with doorway pages and repeatedly sprinkles results from the same domain within results which always looks like a basic mistake. However, Yahoo! does otherwise have a balanced approached to on-page and off-page factors, making it often the most relevant for general information, though not necessarily specific documents;
• MSN doesn't really seem to know what it wants to deliver - it's swung from the extreme of being too focused on general links, to becoming far too focused on on-page content. The results is that I have some small information sites that rank great in MSN in competitive areas, when they do not deserve those positions.
• Ask - clustering means it spends too much time fixating on information sites, as commercial sites rarely link to each other unless in link exchanges. Sometimes the clustering technology seems too focused on .edu site recommendations, which are often woefully out of date. Ask is left tending to ignore great new resources, making it's search results too narrow to be useful overall.

Advanced Search: This section lists results database sizes, links to each engines search results, and the advanced search page from each engine.

Please note that sometimes the API search result database size number does not match the number offered on the search results.

Results Section: Provides combined search results. By default it shows the results in the order of summed authority. It also allows you to tab through the results to see the results from each engine.

Here are example results from Ask. You can tab through and get the results from any engine.

Where are the Ads?

There are no ads on Myriad Search for a few main reasons:

• I wanted to create a fun & useful tool more than a business model.
• I think most meta search engines throw too many ads in the search results, which render them nearly useless for many search queries.
• Each search service has some API limits.
• Some of the API's prohibit commercial or competitive use.
• This tool is geared more for competitive research and deep searching than being made for the average searcher.

Questions Comments Feedback?

Please send me an email seobook@gmail.com or post them here.