Myriad Search / Authority Finder
Authority Finder is an advertisement free meta search service which allows users to
- select which search engines to grab results from:
- Yahoo! Search
- MSN Search
- Ask Jeeves
- any combo of the above (more engines may be added soon as well, although Gigablast & WiseNut seem to be the only other global large scale engines I can think of.)
- allows users to set the search depth (from 10 to 50 results per engine)
- sums up authority scores for each site based on it's rank in each engine
- if a user sets the depth to 20 then
- a number 1 ranking is worth 20
- a number 2 ranking is worth 19
- a number 3 ranking is worth 18
- ...
- a number 20 ranking is worth 1
- if a user setsh the depth to 10
- a number 1 ranking is worth 10
- a number 2 ranking is worth 9
- ...
- a number 10 ranking is worth 1
- if a user sets the depth to 20 then
- allows users to add positive or negative bias to any engine's search results to increase or lower the relative importance of that engine. This can be used to improve overall relevancy of the meta search, or to help give share of voice statistics.
- I was going to allow users to enter a % to weigh each engine to do share of voice, but I feel that it would make the software a bit clumpier, and the share of voice done could still be done using this + or - bias system.
- an example bias to match share of voice might be something like
- Google +5
- Yahoo 0
- MSN -3
- Ask -5
- keep in mind with share of voice that Google tends to have a higher search volume and a greater % of clicks on the organic listings.
- by applying a bias that number is added or subtracted from every result from that engine, with a minimum output score of 0.
- for a +3 bias with 20 results
- #1 = 20 + 3 = 23
- #2 = 19 + 3 = 22
- ...
- #20 = 1 + 3 = 4
- for a -5 bias with 10 results
- #1 = 10 - 5 = 5
- #2 = 9 - 5 = 4
- #3 = 8 - 5 = 3
- #4 = 7 - 5 = 2
- #5 = 5 - 5 = 0
- #6 to #10 would also have a 0 value
- for a +3 bias with 20 results
- this tool does not take pay per click auctioned listings into account.
- The output of Authority Finder is in %. For a site to have 100% authority it would need to rank #1 in all engines selected in the authority test.
- Authority Finder also lets you tab through the results from each engine, showing one engine per tab.
- Authority Finder shows snippets from each search engine.
- Authority Finder shows the database size of each engine for the matching query.
- interesting to see how their results numbers compare to their claimed database sizes
- lots of fun games to play as well, like see who has the largest index for each search engine name :)
- allows CSV output of results.
Try Authority Finder
The first launch of Authority Finder is as a meta search application on a site I named Myriad.
System Requirements
Since Authority Finder is web based it has no system requirements. Hosts that run Authority Finder must support DOM XML & NuSoap.
Source Code for Authority Finder 1.0
Version 1.0:
- source code to Myriad Search homepage - must change index.txt to index.php (must put your default Google key on line 20)
- source code for Myriad Search search results page - must change myriad.txt to myriad.php (must put your default Google key on line 20)
- nusoap - needed to interface with Google - must change nusoap.txt to nusoap.php
- code to generate CSV output file - must chage gencsv.txt to gencsv.php
- CSS file
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Tool Mirrors:
Since Authority Finder uses the Yahoo! API it is limited to 5,000 daily uses per IP address. Software that is web based makes all of it's queries from one IP. Thanks to the following sites for mirroring Authority Finder:
History:
- Version 1.0: Sums up the authority score for websites by using their rankings in Google, Yahoo! Search, MSN Search, and Ask Jeeves. Also allows users to bias the results for fine tuning or share of voice statistics.
Feedback?
Have any feedback on how to make Authority Finder better? Please email me or mention it here.
Press & Coverage:
- initial announcement post
- Search Engine Watch
- ThreadWatch
- Platinax
- seen coverage elsewhere? Please let me know.
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