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The Personal Touch: Web Search Directories

Posted on 29. Aug, 2009 by Harlampij in Web Directories

You can find almost any­thing on the Inter­net, but where do you go to do a web search? Google has been the dom­i­nant search engine for years, and sites like Yahoo or Bing are also pop­u­lar options. These days, how­ever, a lot of peo­ple are look­ing for a more per­son­al­ized approach to find­ing infor­ma­tion online.

One of the ben­e­fits of using a major search engine is that you’ll get hun­dreds of results for almost any topic. Even if you’re look­ing for some­thing that is rel­a­tively obscure, chances are good you’ll find a large num­ber of web­sites ded­i­cated to that sub­ject. While a long list of sites is very use­ful, some­times it’s not quite what peo­ple are look­ing for.

Search­ing the web for infor­ma­tion about prod­ucts, attrac­tions and ser­vices is becom­ing more of a community-based expe­ri­ence for many con­sumers. Peo­ple are turn­ing to sites where they can read advice and opin­ions from oth­ers who have already pur­chased or tried some­thing that they’re inter­ested in. For exam­ple, if you’re look­ing for a restau­rant you may pre­fer to visit Yelp.com to find one that sev­eral din­ers have rec­om­mended instead of doing a stan­dard engine search that would only pro­vide you with a list of places where you could eat. A Google search may show you all the restau­rants in a par­tic­u­lar area, but other sites can actu­ally help you decide which one you want based on reviews from peo­ple who have eaten there.

Internet-users are help­ing each other make bet­ter deci­sions about places to go, prod­ucts to buy, or things to do. Look­ing for a good movie? Then a site that pro­vides a direc­tory of every­thing cur­rently play­ing may not be as use­ful as Rot­ten Toma­toes, where indi­vid­u­als can give their opin­ions about any film. If you’re inter­ested in a par­tic­u­lar prod­uct, you could be inclined to visit Amazon.com or ConsumerReview.com to see which brands have received pos­i­tive or neg­a­tive com­men­taries from the pub­lic. You can even find out which hotels other trav­el­ers pre­ferred at TravelPost.com.

Another way peo­ple are fine-tuning their online search process is by using Social Net­work­ing sites to ask for opin­ions from friends and fam­ily. You can post blogs, bul­letins and com­ments request­ing feed­back on any sub­ject from a group of peo­ple you actu­ally know. It gives the expe­ri­ence a more per­sonal touch, and helps you make a more edu­cated decision.

Does this mean large search engine sites are des­tined to become extinct? Cer­tainly not – the type of web­site you’ll use to look for infor­ma­tion will depend on exactly what you’re hop­ing to find. If you’re research­ing a spe­cific topic, a list of sites that cover your theme is exactly what you need. Many sites like Google, Yahoo and Bing are also reg­u­larly adding new fea­tures to help you per­son­al­ize your search results, and give you exactly what you’re look­ing for.

Related Posts:

• 12 Web Design Direc­to­ries To Improve Your SEO
• The impor­tance of web directories
• Sub­mit to Web Direc­to­ries to Gain Trusted Links
• Tips For Choos­ing the Best Web Direc­tory to List Your Website
• Web Direc­tory Submissions

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