Social Search Engine Volunia Hits the Web

Although Google is considered as the search engine giant, that doesn’t stop other search engines to emerge in the market. In fact, an Italian search engine site Volunia launched last week. The site features three innovations:

1. High level website preview
2. Multimedia site function
3. Social layer on search engine results

High Level Website Preview

In a video presentation made for the University of Padua, founder Massimo Marchiori described Volunia as a social search engine that provides a visual or grid map of a website. The visual map presents a site’s navigation in a neighborhood format. On the other hand, the grid map resembles a computer folder which is ideal for viewing in small displays, like mobile phones.

Multimedia Site Function

Search engines’ primary focus is on textual content. That’s because other formats such as PDF, images and videos can be a problem for search engine bots to index. As a result, Google provides navigation links where users can look for content other than text. With Volunia, users don’t just see the text format of a website. They can also search for a site’s incorporated multimedia content.

Social Layer on Search Engine Results

The search engine’s social layer is a feature that Volunia users might appreciate the most. In the search results, they can select a website link not just based on keywords and ranking but also on the visitor count. At the left side of the results, users can see the site’s number of pages and real-time visitors.

But it’s still vague how effective and useful this feature is. Although a visitor count is available, that doesn’t guarantee user satisfaction. Moreover, the numbers doesn’t necessarily align with a user’s expectations.

Volunia’s Seek & Meet

One thing that makes Volunia social is its social media interface called Seek & Meet. It’s akin to Google’s now defunct Sidewiki, although Seek & Meet users can interact with each other in real-time.

This is a useful feature for businesses because this where sharing of pre- and post-purchase information can happen. A Volunia user can visit the Seek & Meet space if he or she wants to ask about a particular product or looking for customer support. Although prone to scams, this feature provides endless opportunities for brand owners to promote their products.

Whether Volunia can go a long way remains to be seen. Nevertheless, the social search engine definitely innovates on what other search engines are missing. In turn, the features they offer can make them stand out from the crowd.

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