Blekko is a search engine that keeps out web spam, content farms and malware. This helps this popular search engine focus on the best quality websites for the input provided by the user. They have a smaller crawl of three billion pages which keeps out pages irrelevant to your search.

1. Blekko – A Search Engine that Likes
Quality and Hates Spam

2. 1. Those who know about search engines and are into
information technology will recall the days of AltaVista, the
best search engine of its times, which has now faded into
oblivion. There are many such search engine ventures which
exploded off the blocks with great promise only to end up as
also-rans. The major ones which made promising starts but
ended up in a whimper include Open
Text, Magellan, Infoseek, Snap, WebCrawler, and HotBot. The
newest kid on the block is Blekko.
2. How’s Blekko Different from Others?
It is an enhanced searching system which eliminates irrelevant
search sites and content from spam-infested sites. The intent is
to provide quality search results which are relevant to the
query you have posted. If you need results that are
informative, from the best sites on the internet relevant to
your search, and in double-quick time, this search engine
promises you all these and more.

3. 3. What is a Consumer Facing Search Engine?
A consumer facing search engine is one which is focused on delivering
high quality content that’s relevant and spam-free. The founders of
Blekko believe in the concept of transparency and openness when it
comes to search results. The search engine operates on the unique
concept of combining traditional algorithmic search with the expertise
of users and partners to eliminate spam and results from sites seen as
content farms. You can be sure of getting the best possible results for
your query from some of the top sites on the internet.
4. Google Is Light Years Ahead But Do They Deliver
the Best Search Results?
That would depend on what you define as ‘the best’. If you are
referring to the number of pages the search results deliver,
undoubtedly Google is the best. But how relevant are these pages to
your query? Are you sure you are getting the best available
information on the internet or are you being tricked into accepting
hundreds of thousands of web pages with links that serve as a bait for
Google’s search results? It is apparent that billions of pages of these
kinds were created with the sole intention of fooling Google search
engines.

4. 5. How Links Trick Search Engines
One of the great innovations of Google was auctioning off
search terms. It was also one of the key sources of wealth for
Google. But Mr. Rich Skrenta, co-founder of Blekko contends
that when Google assigned an economic value to links on a
Web page, many pages filled up with links that served only as
bait for Google’s search engine. Mr. Skrenta’s goal is to clean
up Web search and get all spam out of it.
6. How Blekko Makes a Difference to Your Search
Results
Blekko’s search engine combs three billion Web pages that it
regards as high value content. But it shows only the best
results on the top pages for any given topic. The edited lists of
Web sites are called Slashtags. The engine also tries to weed
out Web pages created by so-called content farms. These sites
research and determine popular Web search topics and then
hire people with no relevant qualification and expertise to
write articles on those topics for sites.

5. 7. The Blekko Policy
 The new search engine focuses on quality, not quantity. They
purposefully bias their index away from sites with low quality
content.
 The results shown are source based and not link-based like
Google. The company relies on the expertise of their users to
judge the authority of sources to determine the best results
for a search query.
 The results you get are included from sites whose primary aim
is to provide valuable information and not commercialization.
Sites created with the sole intent of manipulating search
results are banned.
 Human curation is the key differentiating factor. The search
engine founders firmly believe in the involvement of human
expertise in determining search results.
 Transparency is another factor that distinguishes them from
their competitors. The site makes all information about web
data, ranking information, and the curation effort of their
users freely available to its users.

6. 8. A Search Engine that Believes that Less is More
Since it was launched, the new search engine has handled
around one million search queries per day. The users have also
created thousands of Slashtags; the custom search filters that
serve as the search engine’s key distinguishing factor from
Google and Bing. The concept of providing less number of
search results that are more relevant to the query is being
appreciated by users and explains the tremendous popularity
Blekko has gained in a relatively short period of time. The
company intends to hang on to only those users who like their
unique concept.