Wikipedia Turns a Corner With Wikiseek

Prior to this moment, a search on Wikipedia would best be done if one knew just what one was looking for, or, at the very least, close to it. With the launch of Wikiseek (beta), your method for finding stuff on the largest community-driven encyclopedia and general information source on the planet can be as specific or as vague as you decide to make it. It’s not Wikipedia for dummies, mind you. It’s just a great deal more powerful engine than what you’ve gotten accustomed to.

My suspicion is that many searches through Wikipedia aren’t even done through the site. Its pages routinely catalogue among the most popular results on the variety of heavily-trafficked engines throughout the world. A Google or Yahoo! search on a topic is bound to return at least a few links to Wikipedia’s wikis (I’ll vouch for the redundancy) within the first 10-20 results. And this is good, as it proves the power of the search realm’s existing stalwarts and shows Wikipedia is as popular an information venue as its fanbase proclaims. I think we can agree that any differing opinion from “experts” is pretty much null at this point.

But what if you only want to search Wikipedia, and you cannot stand the aged method with which you’ve been doing so? Wikiseek is, without a doubt, the best answer to such a question. It’s not the “better way to search Wikipedia”, as Wikiseek’s subtitle states. It’s the best way. Let's have a look what its makers have come up with.

Firstly, it’s plain. Wikipedia is doled out to the masses in shades of gray and white, with links a simple blue. The same goes for Wikiseek. Its creators also caught on to the tagging phenomenon for categorization, so through each search, above all else (visually-speaking), you see an expansive tag window. This can be a very effective solution for those not quite sure what they’re looking for, or want to target an item on the fly, and believe a narrowing of their scope through the aid of suggested keywords might be the best way to get the information they need. This feature’s significance is likely lost on most people, regardless of which site has implemented the technology, but I can see it being the best salve for those who continually rephrase their searches to reveal the most appropriate results.

At first glance, Wikiseek’s homepage is like any other engine’s. In fact, the page is simpler than most. Type in anything – if you’d like, really do type ‘anything’ – hit the ‘searchme’ button, and you’re brought to a page with categories (tags) of different-sized fonts to signify popularity or relevance situated atop the results directly; a ‘Sponsored Links’ column to the right. And of course the option to view successive pages is available. That’s it. Simple. Simple works well.

There’s not much else to mention that pertains to Wikiseek, other than the plugin available for installation on most modern web browsers. Just click the link at the top right of any results page, click ‘Install the Plugin’, and you’re set. If you’re required to manually install the plugin, you can do so.

So that’s it. That’s Wikiseek. I’d like to say I had more to mention for the sake of unpacking more goodies on you. After all, it is one of the more significant things to come out of Wikipedia’s development in some time. But its understated, bare-bones presence is perhaps one of the greatest things about it. We don’t want to learn how to search. We just want to… search. Wikiseek lets you do that, without having to know much about what you’re looking for, if that be the case. It’s solid, it’s infinitely scalable (catch me if I’m wrong on that one), and it may just get you to your destination quicker. With so many pages being added to Wikipedia on a daily basis, it’s good to know you can now deal with its complexity in a very easy and manageable way.