I am pleased to announce that Radu, the owner and founder of the meta search engine FlexFinder has agreed to do an interview with me.
It is a great engine and is giving us smaller and mid-sized search engines a helping hand in competing with the older and larger players. So make sure and check it out after the interview!
Question #1
Nathan Enns: Can you tell us when FlexFinder was officially launched, what motivated you to start your own meta search engine and a little about your background in the industry?
Radu: FlexFinder.com was launched in December 2004 as a personal project in an attempt to better understand existing web technologies. My background is in software engineering with a lot of experience in designing desktop applications, but little in creating Internet based applications. I found the field of web searching to be very interesting and challenging, a perfect idea for such a learning project.
Initially I wanted to design an engine with its own database, but then I switched to meta-search, considering the hardware requirements for the former. However, I did not give up the initial idea completely, I still developed in parallel a small engine with its own spider/database, that is used as part of the overall meta-search engine.
Question #2
Nathan Enns: I see that FlexFinder pulls results from smaller search engine companies like Gigablast, Mojeek, ExactSeek and EntireWeb as opposed to Google, Yahoo, MSN and ASK. Can you tell us what advantage there is in this approach?
Radu: Indeed, FlexFinder's approach is quite unique, since it is using search results from smaller engines and directories. Most meta-search engines are querying the same few major search engines, giving similar results to the users. FlexFinder, on the other hand, usually delivers different results for a user query by tapping into web resources that are not used so often.
The engines FlexFinder is using are of high quality and unique in their search algorithms and coverage, ensuring the meta-search results are different, but relevant to the user search.
Question #3
Nathan Enns: Is there a benefit to the average Internet user in choosing FlexFinder instead of another meta search engine or a search engine with it's own database?
Radu: FlexFinder was not intended to replace the major search engines, however it can be a very good second engine. Big engines tend to use similar search algorithms that usually deliver comparable results to the user. On the other hand FlexFinder's results often reveal interesting web results that don't show up on the first pages of the big engines.
The complete interview that includes all 10 questions can be found at the search industry blog owned by FyberSearch at http://www.fybersearch.com/
About FyberSearch:
FyberSearch is a search engine technology company founded in November 2003 by Nathan Enns. FyberSearch operates several websites that provide Internet users with information retrieval/processing services and website owners with tools to help them optimize/promote their website. FyberSearch's mission is to "provide revolutionary information retrieval and processing tools to all Internet users".
Nathan Enns, CEO
Company: FyberSearch LLC
URL: http://www.fybersearch.com
Email: tech@fybersearch.com
Phone: 206-244-0179
