Pure Site Search

A Social Network for Swicki Builders

Posted by Eurekster Alex on January 28, 2008 at 12:15pm in Training Your swicki

You can train your swicki to spider ONLY content from your site. To do this, only check the box for 'My Site' on the train page when you're building your swicki.

Using a swicki as your site search provider can prove to be an effective tool for your users. They can vote and comment on their favorite content from your site, making it easier for the next person to find what they're looking for as well as interesting content.

Tags: search, site

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by taiyo on March 20, 2008 at 10:00am: I never thought about it that way before.

By setting up a swicki that only displays results from my site, users could rate my content. Interesting.

Since adding the comment-on-individual-results feature, Swicki has become sort of similar to Digg.com (users can submit, comment, and rate items) but better because its search.
I think that leveraging these submit, comment and rate features properly will really push my swicki to the next level.

I want to extend the use of my swicki beyond my site but it is difficult.
From my experience most bloggers are pretty hesitant to add widgets to their sidebars. In the case of the swicki widget there is not a lot of incentive for other bloggers to add it to their blogs.
I think part of that is because it does not search their site. If it were possible to make the Swicki widget search the web OR their site (like the Google search box does) then I think bloggers/webmasters would be trampling each other in a mad rush to get swicki-publishers' widgets.

Also, the things I really really want to see (and I am looking into making them) are Swicki SERP widgets.
Here is the idea: Swicki SERPs act like a mini-digg.com (or mini-pligg) for the specific search terms. Users can submit, comment, rate.
They are a perfect way to compile, rate, and discuss any topic! So what if there was a function that let bloggers make a widget of any SERP on a specific topic and add the widget to their site? Now the swicki's use is extended beyond your website.

So if bloggers are posting about basketball and search a sports swicki for "Michael Jordan" they could click a button ("make this search a widget") and the SERP would become a widget they could put inside their blog post!

I get excited just thinking about it! Does anyone have an idea as to how it could be done? I've heard that there will be RSS of SERPs coming soon, that could make it possible.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Rosemary on June 18, 2008 at 5:58am: This seems to have suddenly stopped working. As of today, (18th June), results from other websites are appearing in the search results of my two site-only swickis. In most cases this doesn't matter too much as they're listing after the results from my own website, but for some searches my own pages are coming way down the list.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Rosemary on June 19, 2008 at 5:09am: The swickis that do this are:

http://rspcabookshop-swicki.eurekster.com/

and

http://rspca-cambridge-branch-site-search-box-swicki.eurekster.com/

I've checked the "train to modify behavior" page and only the site search option is ticked.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Eurekster Alex on June 20, 2008 at 2:22pm: Turns out this is a bug. Engineers are already looking into it, and I've received word that it should be fixed within the week.

Sorry for any inconveniences.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by taiyo on August 4, 2008 at 7:20am: Hey Alex,

Any thoughts on my Swicki S.e.r.p.s widget idea?
Is it a possibility?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Eurekster Alex on August 4, 2008 at 1:08pm: Great idea on the Digg-like widget.

Yup, working on making RSS available for results and content, after which much more should be possible with the swicki widgets.

Stay tuned. Any announcements would be announced both here as well as on our corporate blog.; ▶ Reply to This