Hakia Challenge - What Could Be More Relevant?

Phil Butler,

on September 22, 2007,

hakia My good friend Dr. Riza Berkan just clued me in to a new comparative feature at hakia where users can test hakia against various search engines side-by-side. This feature has been on the hakia site for a little while but Riza and hakia have not publicized it and I thought our readers would be interested. Hakia has been under the radar fora little while now, so I was really glad to get a note from Riza and some cool news to boot. The challenge link can be accessed here or from the hakia main page.

Me and Hakia

As you probably already know hakia's semantic search engine has been one of my favorite topics on Profy and other tech blogs as well. Hakia began its quest for better search in the open where anyone could see the engine's progress along the path to a true semantic relevance. This has obviously been a double edged sword as early detractors could point out that results were initially not a lot better than any other engine's. I initially found hakia's transparency to be symbolic of something truly extraordinary. Subsequent discussions with Riza and hakia's President Melek Pulatkonak have fortified my belief in this particular company and semantic search in general.

hakia comparison

Comparison and Decision

Hakia just recently updated their beta with what is coded as Beta 16 of a 20 step development plan aimed at 20-20 visual clarity in search. This simply means that with this update hakia is roughly 75 percent complete. Hakia has also provided a method by which users and passers by can actually compare their results to those of Google, Yahoo! and Live.com. This challenge is another example of both the quality and transparency of this development and also the spirit of the people behind hakia. I think an honest test of the relative capabilities of hakia via this challenge will reveal significant results. Hakia is already more relevant than Google and has been for some time, but it is YOU that has to make this kind of determination.

Friends Romans Countrymen

I do not think that we too often consider the travail of some of these great innovations we are seeing arise on the Web. Consider what hakia, Powerset and others are trying to accomplish. Hakia is not “simply” making a more relevant search engine - it is starting a revolution. These sets of ideas for semantic search and giving users real answers is more difficult than even the AI inherent inside these engines. Hakia and others are revolting against convention, symbols, skepticism and most significantly an immense power structure. Yes, though Riza would never presume to diminish any other excellent entity - hakia is challenging the hierarchy of Google and Yahoo. We are not just talking about the search engine Google, for hakia and others have already surpassed that for the most part - but approaching or surpassing any arm of this immense Web power structure does not make the job any easier (more on that in another post).

No BS

I believe in transparency - it is the cornerstone of truth and true value. The people at hakia are my friends obviously - there is no subterfuge going on in any of my discourses about them and other startups. This in no way affects my objectivity because I would as readily criticize their faults as I would Google's because I know they would welcome the feedback. I do not think their initial transparency has helped them in the short term for instance - but in the long term this will be irrelevant. Joost, Powerset and a host of others we could term “surprise” developments are not wrong in “baiting” the Web with tidbits and tantalizing chocolate morsels. As for my part in all this I am not prepared to see the good that ANY excellent people do interred with their bones as may have been the case with Gaius Julius Caesar.

Conclusion

In the final analysis this “competition” and the goal of hakia is adding more meaning for people. Hakia has already done that to a large extent, you should allow them to add value and meaning to your search regardless of convention - compare 75 percent of something truly excellent to 100 percent of something you are used to using. The rest of the blog world has not adopted these alternative and highly controversial developments as readily as I have - this is another example of convention vs true innovation. Web 2.0 is supposed to be about stepping into the next realm of connectedness and meaning - my version of it these months has resided far astride of any conventional thinking. In the end I believe yours has too.

hakia Galleries - Perhaps the Best Yet

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Hakia Unleashes “MO” - Meet Others Via Search

Evri Semantic Search Misses Evri-thing for Me

4 Comments (Subscribe to rss)

HMTKSteve - September 22, 2007 at 09:51 am PDT

I took the challenge and did a search for “Pokemon”. When I looked at the video game section I found 5 links. The first one was perfect but the second one redirected me to Target dot com and may even be an affiliate link. The third link went to IGN. The fourth link went to a fan site with a high Alexa and very low post rate. As for the fifth link it went to a very popular on line Pokemon gaming site.

When I did a Google search I get a bunch of results that are not categorized in any way. However, the first result was pokemon dot com followed by the number five result on hakia.

That fan site that hakia wanted me to go to? No where on the first google results page.

Hakia may be good for some things but not for all things.
Phil Butler - September 22, 2007 at 10:24 am PDT

Steve, I am going to have to make you actually read ALL my past posts. A keyword search in either of these engines will not really have much context to work with. On Google you are essentially going to get a Google/SEO modified popularity list. For hakia keywords will return on slightly or sometimes not even as good a result.

However, if my great friend were to be less ADD and decided to type a question the results would be rather more drastically revelaing. I typed in What is Pokemon? into both engines. The Google results revealed a simple list 1-10, while the hakia results were broken down into categories for better selection.

A search for the best Pokemon player revealed the top two results on both engines as being epinions or other opinions of Pokemon followed by Wikipedia and other definitions. The significant thing here is that the hakia results have highlighted phrases that furter help in a users search query and that some of these tabed results were more in line with what you might be looking for.

Granted the results are not ALWAYS (I think I said that) so very evident. However, Google has has 7 or 8 years to provide users with highly refined searcha and as I said Hakia is 75 percent complete so far. A challenge in my mind does not consist of looking for one result and making a decision. I expect a user will have to do more experimentation than that. It is almost like everyone has accepted Google good or bad just like they have accepted having to search for 20 minutes to find some things.
HMTKSteve - September 23, 2007 at 04:42 am PDT

My esteemed coleague Phil,

Let me ask you this, “what is the break down of search terms between single word and multi-word and/or questions in general search ussage?”

I’m willing to make a guess that more people use a single word or a jumble of words rather than a direct question when searching. Because of this you must first change the way people search before something such as Hakia can work for most users.
Mihaela Lica - September 24, 2007 at 01:55 am PDT

Well, let’s just be fair and say: hakia is not ready to take the challenge.

Now, about the SEO part… My challenge for hakia was “what is the world’s largest island?” and trust me, the sites that come up in Google first are not SEO optimized (OK, they have thousands of links, but people link to them because of relevancy, not because the owners did something special - like linking campaigns, buying links and so on).

So let’s be fair here and let’s try not to see SEO everywhere we turn. (I should know, it’s part of my job).

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