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Introduction 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. Question #4 Nathan Enns: I see you offer Video, Image, Health and Blog search features as well as a web search. Do any of those have their own index/database or are they meta engines as well? Radu: All search engines hosted by FlexFinder use the same meta-search technology, but the web resources that are queried are different. For example, Health search engine currently pulls its data from five medical search engines, plus various other online leading health resources when compiling its results. The expertise gathered while developing the Health engine is also used to enhance the web search. The latest released version of the meta-search engine is able to identify medical related queries and automatically pull results from additional specialized health resources too, in order to increase the relevancy of the results. Question #5 Nathan Enns: What can you tell us about the underlying technology? Did you customize an existing program, outsource the work, write it all in-house or did you take a different approach? Radu: FlexFinder meta-search engine was completely developed in-house. The language I choose for it was PHP, because of its wide acceptance on the web, performance and similarity to the C and C++ languages I already knew. That worked out very well allowing to create a quick and flexible engine that can be easily upgraded or enhanced to use new engines. Question #6 Nathan Enns: Can you divulge any traffic statistics? How many queries you receive per minute, hour or day? Radu: I would not give specific numbers at this time. I can say however the traffic increased dramatically in the last half of the year, showing that FlexFinder.com quickly becomes a favorite engine for many people who use it as part of their daily web searches. Question #7 Nathan Enns: Is FlexFinder a hobby, a job or both? For example, do you have a job and work on FlexFinder on the side or do you stick with FlexFinder full time? Radu: FlexFinder started out more as a hobby, and it still continues to be a project I am supporting in my spare time, even that it requires now more of it. I think it has the potential to grow into a much bigger project, but I am still having my job as a software engineer for now. Question #8 Nathan Enns: Do you have any future plans for FlexFinder? Any advanced features or new tools coming soon? Radu: Yes, there are a few things on the to-do list or already in development. The web search engine is going to be upgraded for better dynamic selection of the search engines depending on the search type. Not all engines are suitable for all types of searches, so enabling or disabling some of them can increase the relevancy for certain queries. There are also other features that are now in development or in beta phase, which will improve the overall user experience. A search API is also in development that will provide FlexFinder's XML search feed to the interested parties. Question #9 Nathan Enns: What do you see in the future for the search industry (or meta search industry) and what role do you see FlexFinder playing? Radu: Internet is a huge informational resource that grows at a very quick pace, so more powerful search tools will always be needed to properly exploit it. I think FlexFinder has its own place in the web searching field, due to its unique approach and different search results delivered to the user. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about FlexFinder.com. |
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