Hakia Redesigns: Is It Enough?

Monday, October 6th, 2008 by Jordan McCollum

Hakia Redesigns: Is It Enough?

Hot on Ask’s heels, the semantic search engine Hakia launches a redesign today, too. Aside from the new SERP layout, Hakia is testing the use of peer-reviewed “credible sites” and a personal start page.

As a tab on the redesigned SERP, Hakia offers an option to refine your results to sites that have been peer-reviewed to meet strict noncommerciality and credibility standards. The results from credible sites, however, are limited to only queries in the areas of health and the environment—and even then, not all of them:
health care apparently is not part of health.

However, for queries where they do have results, it’s definitely nice to know the information is coming from a site ~~you~~ someone can trust, even if the first two snippets here are terrible:

The default SERP has also seen some changes, with a three-column layout and different areas for the usual ten blue links that everyone seems to want to “get beyond,” images, UGC, other types of results and, of course, ads:

I’m a bit disappointed with the results here for [Witchy Woman]: Of the ten blue links, only two are actually about the Eagles song, including the Wikipedia entry that’s also listed under UGC (compared to seven of ten on Google and four of ten on Yahoo, but on par with Live’s results). Only Hakia and Yahoo have “relevant” ads, both of which included items advertised including the ever popular “Find witchy woman at [store]. Shop and Save at [store].” Nobody’s going to advertise to download the Eagles song? Sigh.

Another tab on the SERPs leads to “my hakia,” a customizable start page that’s pretty standard fare for that genre:

So in all, the redesign’s not bad, and the credible sites feature is cool—if you’re looking for something in health or the environment. I hope they expand that into other subject areas soon before interest fades.

But will this be enough for Hakia to take off?

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16 comments on “Hakia Redesigns: Is It Enough?”

SoLinkable Says:

October 6th, 2008 at 4:51 pm

pffft. Why would “Health care” fall under the “Health” category. This is only a search engine we are talking about here.

SoLinkable’s last blog post..Cyanide And Happiness
PS3 Says:

October 6th, 2008 at 6:14 pm

Either I or Hakia has been hiding under a rock. Whichever way it is, I have never heard of them before this article.
QuickPWN Says:

October 6th, 2008 at 6:15 pm

By just including two topics in their search engine they will be loosing a lot of visitors and searches on their website. They need to start adding more topics or people will just loose interest.

QuickPWN’s last blog post..Install Flash Player iPhone App
Hakia COO Speaks About Product Updates including Credible Search (video) »TechAddress Says:

October 6th, 2008 at 8:30 pm

[...] search provider Hakia. There were a variety of good reviews here, here, here, here, here and here. During my time at Search Marketing Expo, I met with Hakia COO Melek Pulatkonak who provided a demo [...]
Goran Web Design Says:

October 7th, 2008 at 5:21 am

Yup, it’s not such a great design. But hey, let’s see how the masses will respond to it.
Jacques Snyman Says:

October 7th, 2008 at 8:29 am

First time I’ve heard of Hakia. I will definitely go and poke around and play with it a bit. Health and Environment is two of my favourite subjets, so I am looking forward to see Hakia’s offering in operation.
Dean Says:

October 7th, 2008 at 9:04 am

Note to Hakia: The world doesn’t need/want another search engine.

Note to Investors of new search engines: The world doesn’t need/want another search engine.
Jordan McCollum Says:

October 7th, 2008 at 10:52 am

Then Hakia’s in luck, Dean, since it’s a relatively well-established addition to the world of search engines at a whopping four years old.
Dean Says:

October 7th, 2008 at 12:09 pm

If you’re 4 years old and nobody has heard of you (I don’t think I am alone)then you’re “new”
Utah SEO Pro Says:

October 7th, 2008 at 1:02 pm

Do they think they’ll get bought out quicker if they have a nicer design? The technology is the key, they have that. They just need to market a bit more.

Utah SEO Pro’s last blog post..Link Metrics for SEO
Saad Kamal Says:

October 7th, 2008 at 9:30 pm

@Dean - The world doesn’t need a lot of things…but still there are new things coming up every day For example, the world didn’t need yet ‘another’ social network but Facebook evolved recently and now doing really well.

Unless there is tight competition in the market, the existing products will never improve. The reason Google still works hard to make their engine better is cuz they are always under pressure (even though they have over 60% market share in US).

Saad Kamal’s last blog post..Gmail Goggles
Hakia Semantic Search Engine Says:

October 7th, 2008 at 10:41 pm

[...] about Ask.com Getting a Facelift but now I see that Ask is not alone, Semantic Search Engine Hakia has launched a brand new design for their engine with some new [...]
Dean Says:

October 8th, 2008 at 10:36 am

@Saad -

I agree with you about the need for competition, but Google will get its true “competition” (i.e the fight for revenue) from Yahoo and MSFT (and maaaaaybe Ask). The only real purpose search for engines like Hakia are to give the market leaders new ideas on features and and functionality.

Don’t believe me? Would all Marketing Pilgrim users who use a search engine other than Google, Yahoo, MSFT, and Ask, please raise your hand. Bonus points if you have adopted Hakia. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
Saad Kamal Says:

October 8th, 2008 at 10:48 am

@Dean - Currently we are still stuck at Web 2.0. Web 3.0 is slowly evolving and the big players are likely to be the “last” to adapt it. (I’m talking about Semantic Search in particular).

So If a new startup tries to build a engine on the new technology, I’d definitely support them. And I think every1 should too.

Ofcourse we are all using “Google” but right now I’m talking about the “technology”. If hakia or anyone else can make a break-through in Semantic Search - Either that company would be acquired by any of the search giants (to improve their current engine), or it will become a separate engine of it s own.

And If you asked the same question in 1998 people would have said Altavista, excite & other engines cuz Google didn’t even exist back then!

Similarly we don’t really know whats going to happen in 10 years from now! Microsoft being the PIONEER of OS and holding over 95% share are still having hard time to compete with Google (which was Just a Masters Research project of two Stanford Student).

So If this is possible…Anything is possible
Saad Kamal’s last blog post..Aweber to Add Twitter
Dennis Edell Says:

October 10th, 2008 at 8:43 pm

I’m with PS3, who are they again?
Dennis Edell’s last blog post..Do Advertisers Judge You By Design? What Do You Think…
GiuseppeMartone Says:

October 25th, 2008 at 1:12 pm

Hakia is a new frontier of serps.. We are attending developments..

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