Do you Scour the Web?
Web search has become an integral part of our lives (life on the internet that is). Whether it’s research or simply something we’re curious about, web search is simply what to do. Now while everyone has their preference of search engine like Google, Yahoo, MSN etc, there’s a new name on the block that promises a better experience.. and a bit more.
Scour describes itself as a social search engine. The first thing you’ll notice when doing your first search on it is that it searches several search engines at once. While the concept isn’t new (there’s quite a lot of met web search engines around that relies ), Scour tries to improve accuracy and relevancy of it’s search results by allowing users to rate and comment on them.
Oh, and Scour pays you to use it. What more could you ask for?
Scouring the Web
When you do a search on Scour, the AJAX-powered results page results from Google, Yahoo and MSN Live Search joined and ordered by their ranks from the respective search engine as well as user’s votes. Image and Video searching has also been integrated so you don’t miss out on your favorite searches. If you wish to display results from a single source, say Google only, you can set it to rank Google results first.
What this means is that you have the same very search engine except you’re earning points in the process which can be redeemed for Visa gift cards.
This is a breakdown of points that Scour give you for using it’s service:
- 1 point for every search
- 2 point for rating a search result
- 3 points for commenting on a search result
- bonus points (varies) for joining through this link
- 25% of points earned from your friends
If you manage to get 6,500 points, you earn yourself a $25 Visa gift card that can be used anywhere Visa is accepted — which is essentially everywhere on the web. This offer is available to everyone, not just the US or Canada.
How do I search?
Like most of the big search engines, you have several ways to access Scour to do your search. Make sure, however you have an account and are signed in before using it.
- You can go to the Scour Website and set it as your home page so all new tabs/windows will automatically launch the search page.
- Search Toolbars for IE and Firefox
- Or if you simply want to add Scour to your list of search engines on your browser, use the Searchbar plug-in. (Works for most browsers)
- Widgets, Desktop Search Engines and plugins for other browsers are still in the works.
What’s the catch?
Everything has to have it’s negative side and Scour has one too. It only looks at the top 10 results from each search engines (giving you a max of 30 results). If you need to dig in a bit deeper, you’ll need to refine your and/or edit your preferences (as stated in their FAQ). So far though, I still haven’t found a way on how to set said settings =(.
You’ll also note that there are some instances of duplicate results. This occurs commonly on sites accessible from multiple domains (i.e. www and no-www or redirects).
Conclusion
Scour has replaced my default search engine as well as my default start up page. If that’s not an indication of how sold I am to it, I don’t know what is. Even without the money, I’d still use Scour because it does most of the work (when you need to search from multiple engines) for you.
You can Join Scour via this this link.
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