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Targeted Multi-source (federated) Searching of the Open Web What SurfWax does well.SurfWax offers targeted multi-source search, where only trusted sources specific to a domain or topic are used. Sources can be any Web site, database, or intranet files. This improves search precision and saves time (results from sources outside the are not included). Major search engines can do this to some extent by restricting a search to a domain. But finding the appropriate domains in the first place is the challenge. SurfWax excels at meeting this challenge by providing technology which makes it easy to create customized SearchSets (clusters of domain-specific sources). SurfWax is a valid option next to Google, MSN, Ask, and other major engines, rather than a replacement. Bringing precision and efficiency to searching the Open Web. Knowledgeable researchers and information professionals know that database/source selection is a key element, along with search strategy, of successful information retrieval. Yet open Web search engines do now allow for intellectual assessment and selection of sources which would be the best match for the question or situation at hand. Searching appropriate content retrieves Web pages which are more precise in terms of relevance and this saves time by eliminating tedious review of numerous irrelevant results. Most importantly this precision greatly increases the likelihood (success rate) of answering a question or locating needed information. A single query and a single point-of-access saves time. The SurfWax solution to this problem is to create and consistently enhance SearchSets comprised searchable source specific to a domain/topic. This guarantee improves relevance of results while at the same time providing consistently credible and authoritative content. With SurfWax LawKT and with SurfWax Enterprise, clients work with SurfWax professionals to develop or customize SearchSets to match the needs of researchers within the organization. These customized SearchSets are then categorized so that researchers can easily locate and search the appropriate content for their question. SearchSets also provide a secondary level of topical drill-down. Second level categories allow searchers to focus on specific aspects of the main topic being searched as well as browse categories and sub-categories to help refine their need. For example, in the LawKT product there is a SearchSet for "Practice Areas." The sub-categories for this SearchSet include 62 specific practice areas. The use of SearchSets, as opposed to searching the open Web, provides implicit context for the subjects being searched. Context plus authoritative content means retrieving better information more quickly 
The results from the multi-search sources are de-dupped and integrated into one, easy-to-read list. You can sort this list by relevance, source, alphabetically, or by date (when available). 
--Targeted, multi-source searching: SurfWax can crawl/index any site (intranet, Internet) and/or we can use a site's existing search capability as part of the meta-search process. Thus, we are able to retrieve from non-subscription portions of what is commonly called the, "invisible web." We use proprietary algorithms to manage the timeliness of response from a site, t he interpretation of a site's search criteria (Boolean, etc), and the online/off-line status of a site. --SearchSets: Early on we embraced the concept of a user being able to enhance search precision by customizing their own set or group of searchable sources. Further, as mentioned above, if a user has a valid password to a for-fee site, in most cases, that source can be included in a SearchSet with the results from the for-fee source seamlessly integrated with the results from the other sources in the set. --Content filtering (optional; integrated with the search):\ At the client Administration level (school, law firm, marketing department, etc.), we provide the option to turn on/off content filtering (e.g., most schools opt to have filtering on). Our proprietary filtering algorithms use extensive dictionaries and fuzzy logic to check search strings, titles, and meta-data. When documents are saved to an InfoCubby they are scanned for viruses and, at the client's option, all documents can be scanned to assure that content is appropriate. |
