August 13, 2002, 12:40 AM ET
Smarter search results
No site review tonight, because I've been busy with a few new Holovaty.com features.
Both features have to do with helping people find what they want. I've programmed my search engine so that result pages highlight your search terms -- each word in a different color, just like Google. For example, try a search for auto refresh home page and check out the highlighted terms.
Of course, sometimes you just plain don't need text highlighting. That's what the aptly named "Remove highlighting" link is for.
If that isn't exciting enough, here's the coolest part: Following webmasterworld's lead, I've added a Google-specific highlighting feature. If somebody lands deep within Holovaty.com via a Google search, that person's Google search terms will automatically be highlighted on my site. (And, again, there's the option to turn them off.) Plus, there'll be a link to search only Holovaty.com for the search terms -- an improvement on webmasterworld's system.
Eventually I'll add support for Inktomi, AlltheWeb, Altavista and maybe a few other search engines, but Google is the most important, in my opinion.
If news sites did something like this, people would consider them a heckuva lot more useful. I recall hearing an absurdly large percentage of hits to news sites come via search engines. Why not lend a helping hand to potential readers?
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