There are lots of search engines who claim the title of “Google Killer.” Google doesn’t seem to be on its deathbed yet,
and I have found what might be the ultimate “Google Enhancer.”
SortFix lets you type in a search query and compare the results from Google, Yahoo and the Open
Directory Project. (Yes, maybe not the directory I would have chosen, but it’ll work for proof of concept.) What is noteworthy, though,
is in the search results screen. In addition to the usual Google (or Yahoo or ODP) results, there are three large colored boxes at the top
of the search results page. (Click here to see the search result for the search
biomass (energy OR power). If you don’t see any text in the boxes, try again using Internet Explorer.)
The left-most box shows “power words” – related words and concepts that frequently appeared in the search results. The middle box shows your current search words, with a Boolean OR indicated by a line connecting the two terms. The right-most box is for words you want to exclude from search results.
What sets SortFix apart is that you can drag and drop words among these boxes. In my search for biomass energy, for example, my Power Words included
renewable and wind [and] solar. I can drag either of those Power Words from the left box to the middle box, adding these words to my query. I can also NOT any word of phrase by moving it to the right box.
Having these three boxes makes it very easy to construct complex Boolean searches without worrying about the search syntax. But that’s not all… If you change your setting to “Expert”, you also have access to two more boxes in the search results page – Dictionary and Standby. The Dictionary box is as you might expect –drag a word into that box and a short definition of the word is displayed. But the feature that really impressed me was the Standby box. This is brilliant – it is a holding pen where you can put words or phrases that you don’t want to include in the current search but that you might want later. Wow. Can you imagine this function in any of the value-added online services such as Dialog, Factiva or LexisNexis?
The Expert mode adds some other nice features as well. You can add phrases to your search query, and there are two additional buttons under the middle box – [Synonyms] and [OR]. Click any of your search terms and then click the [synonyms] button, and – assuming you are using SortFix on Google search results – it will add a tilde (~) in front of the word. As we Google nerds know, that generates a search for not only the specific word but for similar concepts. For example, a search for ~children will also include results with child, kids and childhood. (Click the “synonyms” link when looking at Yahoo or ODP search results doesn’t do anything.) The default for adjacent words is a Boolean AND, but you can indicate any words you want OR’d together by highlighting the words and click the [OR] button.
The most significant problem with SortFix is that it is designed for Internet Explorer or Firefox v.2 and earlier; on Firefox v.3 or Safari, you can see the search results but none of the SortFix features are functional. And, curiously, I compared the results from SortFix and Google for the identical search and found quite a few differences among the first ten results.
It appears that the best uses of this search engine are for searches where you know you will be trying a number of alternative words and phrases, and would appreciate the Standby box; when you prefer to, as SortFix says, “Start Dragging, Stop Typing”; and when you want to have a very visual tool for constructing your search logic.
