Blekko – Will it Beat Google?

Many companies have tried to compete with Google in attempts to create a more effective search engine, but have nevertheless failed.

The most recent attempts at conquering Google is a new search engine called Blekko, which opened today to the public.

In a recent New York Times article, “A New Search Engine, Where Less Is More,” Blekko’s chief executive Rich Skrento, reports that “since Google started, the Web has been overrun by unhelpful sites full of links and keywords that push them to the top of Google’s search results but offer little relevant information.” Skrento continues by noting that Blekko’s main goal is to provide users with trustworthy and relevant sites and ultimately to “clean up Web search and get all the spam out of it.”

Blekko searches through over three billion Web pages, but only shows the very top results on specific topics. Essentially, Blekko provides an edited list of the most relevant Web sites. Users can use “slashtags” to search for their desired topic, such as “Kindle/Amazon,” which will search for Kindle on Amazon.com. Users can make their own slashtags and edit others, on top of Blekko providing hundreds of these tags as well.

But, my question is will people who are Google-loyal really switch over to a new search engine because it claims to provide more relevant search results? Reportedly, two-thirds of search queries in the US are conducted by Google. Also, Blekko plans to sell similar search ads to Google that are linked with slashtags and keywords.

Perhaps Blekko will not be a complete flop like so many other search engine attempts, but some claim that it has no chance in being the “Google killer.”