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July 29, 2008 10:03 AM PDT

Search Cloud lets you hack keywords in Web searches

by Josh Lowensohn

Search Cloud is a search engine that uses weighted keywords to determine relevancy in its results. When entering search terms you can change which words or phrases need priority over others by changing their size from one to five. More important keywords appear larger, and will be bolded in the results.

The application runs entirely in Adobe Flash, and while not nearly as fast as Google, is no slouch. I was able to find some highly targeted results with just three or four keywords which ended up being better than Google and Yahoo's in several cases. To open results you'll need to double click them, which is a little odd. You can also go back and revise your search by deleting keywords one by one or changing what size they are.

Below is a demo video of how to set up a search with the tool, although I recommend giving it a look yourself to get the feel of re-sizing your keywords.

Josh Lowensohn is an associate editor for Webware.com, CNET's blog about cool and otherwise useful Web applications and services. If you've found a site you'd like profiled, shoot him an e-mail. E-mail Josh.
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Add a Comment (Log in or register)
by tsdragon July 29, 2008 3:03 PM PDT
I'm totally underwhelmed. I tried a search I used just yesterday: visual basic dll class id. Google gave me 2,280,000 results. Search Cloud gave me NONE! Being able to refine and prioritize my search terms isn't going to help much when they have not matches at all. How many web sites have they indexed, 10?
Reply to this comment
by Josh.Lowensohn July 29, 2008 4:55 PM PDT
Bummer. It's not working off the same index though, so Google has the clear advantage there. Have you tried your vbasic query on Cuil?
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