"The Clever Project" and search engine innovation

[Laura Cohen]

Roy's remark about the IMB Clever Project and the hopes for a search engine
that would actually follow this up brings to mind HotBot's use of the
Direct Hit engine. This engine calls itself a "Popularity Engine" and
tracks sites that users select from their results as a way of ranking and
presenting its own results, limited to the top10. This is of course a far
cry from locating quality, but the outcome is interesting.

You can try it out at HotBot by choosing "Top 10 Most Visited Sites" at the
top of your results list (though sometimes the number is less), or go to 

		http://www.directhit.com/

or
		http://www.directhit.com/try.html

Laura Cohen

          Laura B. Cohen
          Network Services Librarian      The University at Albany
          University Libraries UL-140     Albany, NY 12222
          Phone: 518-442-3492             LCOHEN at cnsvax.albany.edu