Working in search, it is difficult to remain optimistic and hopeful for smaller, independent search entities. The competition is fierce and the financial stakes are far higher than in most business sectors. Everyone is scared of the Big G, even a company as massive as Microsoft.
I spent 2006 and much of 2007 thinking and writing about alternative search engines. When I was recently asked to write a longer piece on a Canadian based search engine, I knew it would be a challenging assignment.
A couple of weeks ago, the fine folks at Search Engine Strategies asked me to write a piece about the independent Halifax based search engine, GenieKnows. It was a difficult piece to write for a number of reasons but the greatest challenge was in figuring out why the general public would use GenieKnows (or any other search engine) in place of Google.
It didn’t take GenieKnows PR director Mark Harper long to show GenieKnow’s strongest tool, one that differentiates it from competitors, even those as large as Google.
GenieKnows has a remarkable local search engine that was designed specifically with the needs of business or tourism travelers in mind. I’ll wait until SEW or SES publishes the longer piece before recycling the best paragraphs my review but before that piece is published, I would like to urge readers to check out the Local Search interface at GenieKnows, just to get a sense of how smaller companies are working to stand-out from the pack.
GenieKnows is sponsoring the bank of computers available to SES Toronto attendees so those without laptops can check emails or get a short bit of work done. If you’re at SES Toronto, take a few minutes to say hello to the GenieKnows representatives there. Being the longest lasting Canadian based search engine, is reason enough to congratulate them but after you check out their take on Local Search, you’ll likely find other reasons
too.
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