Accelerating Search by Finding Sites Contextually

UCmore Makes Sense Out of Search

The votes are in and search is the clear winner as an essential and productive use of the Web. But using a search engine to find information is often an arduous task. The typical search site produces hundreds of results for any keyword submitted, leaving it up to you-the searcher-to wade through the results to gain the knowledge you need.

Traditional search engines have their place. However, to really accelerate the process of finding the information you’re looking for, it would help to have the search results organized in a format that will provide the searcher the ability to analyze a lot of information in an efficient manner.

This kind of search method, called “contextual search,” is one in which contextual information is organized by categories related to the entire content of a site or search term thereby helping you narrow and find results more quickly. A typical search produces a huge list of results. Having the contextual layer as part of it brings a wider and complementary scope of knowledge to the search process.

UCmore, a Web tool developed by knowledge management company, Effective-i, gives you the ability to receive complementary contextual search results without having to rely only on a search engine as your primary source of information. UCmore installs itself unobtrusively into the top of the Internet Explorer browser window. At any given moment your browser is enriched with contextual information that you can access and use like any other default menu in your browser. UCmore relies on a database of 400,000 categories and more than 4 million URLs determined by subject relevancy and use to deliver its information.

In fact, you can think of UCmore as a team of your very own web reference librarians that directs you to the exact section of the Internet you are researching so you can find more sites on the topics you’re looking for and choose the best site for you. UCmore gives you more relevant results and provides you with a new method of understanding them. Sites are sorted into categories to help you navigate through the results. Mousing over the site listings in these categories displays a brief description of each site so you can “see more” of what you’re looking for (hence the name UCmore: “You See More”). It’s like scanning book titles when you wander the stacks of a library or the shelves of a bookstore.

Whether you are in “search mode” or just “surf mode,” UCmore is always at work in the background. For example, suppose you just found out a dear friend has breast cancer. You’re going to go visit her in an hour so you don’t have a lot of time, but you want to gain more knowledge and learn everything you can about the disease, treatment options, survival rates, and support groups, etc. before visiting her. You go to your favorite search engine and type in “breast cancer.” Back pops 2.5 MILLION results. The volume of information is overwhelming. How can you find the knowledge you need out of this list in a short period of time? You look at the UCmore categories in your browser’s menu bar and see: breast, organizations, personal pages, and awareness. You click the first category, “breast,” and it says, “Breast in the context of cancer.” You mouse over the titles to learn more about each site. The description for the site titled “CancerNet: breast cancer” reads “Features information from the National Cancer Institute about the causes, diagnosis, and treatment of breast cancer.” This could be just what you were looking for. You click on the link and off you go.

Within less than a minute of using UCmore, you are at a site with the exact information you seek. No wading through an unorganized pile of sites or dozens of listings. No wasted click-thrus. No wasted time. And the added bonus is that UCmore continues to offer suggestions unobtrusively if you decide to continue your search. The results are waiting for you without ever having to go back to a search engine by accumulating the most relevant categorized results to the search you just made.

In its surf mode UCmore helps widen your surfing experience. If you just happen to be on a site with subject matter you like and you want to find other sites like it, just take a look at UCmore and you’re likely to find a selection of similar sites you could surf to next. From Art to Zoology, UCmore can help you “see more” of what you’re looking for.

UCmore’s initial database comes from the Open Directory Project, the largest and most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. The Open Directory Project powers search engines like Google, AOL Search and more. If your site is not already listed on UCmore, you can get listed by adding your URL to the Open Directory Project.

UCmore also offers distinctly identified sponsored links, much like Yahoo, MSN, and most other search engines. All sponsored links are scrutinized for appropriateness and relevancy to their particular category so they maintain our high standard of content.

With UCmore there is no learning curve, you’re not forced to change your working habits nor your working environment, and you don’t need to learn new methods or understand how search engines work. UCmore is always working in the background. And if you surf sites in multiple languages, UCmore works in more than 30 languages.

UCmore was developed to make sense out of search. But don’t just take our word for it. Hear what a handful of UCmore users have said about the power of contextual search. David Narbutas from Australia writes, “This program saves me a lot of brainstorming.” Diane McAuley adds, “I found lots of sites that I wouldn’t have found with search engines.” Dale Judkins, II, says that UCmore “always shows you exactly what you’re looking for without a bunch of useless garbage.” And Roger Chang of TechTV admits that “… I started using it 2 days ago and I can’t stop using it….”

These are just some ways in which, over and over again, the power of contextual search is described. Want to accelerate your search process? All it takes is a quick install, and you’ll be on your way.

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