subject: Spam-free Search Engine Makes Its Debut [print this page] Using spamming techniques as part of search engine marketing campaigns has long been frowned upon. Unfortunately, that hasn't stopped unscrupulous SEO companies from using dodgy search engine optimisation tactics to get their wares (usually malware) to the top of Google, Bing and Yahoo's search engine results pages.
Any SEO agency adopting so-called black hat search engine optimisation will quickly find themselves - and their clients - blacklisted from legitimate search engines. However, it is all too easy for unscrupulous firms to change their IP addresses - or use multiple sites - to get around search engines' spam blocking systems.
That is until now. A new search engine - which has cost a whopping $24 million (15 million) to create - has been launched in beta form today. Blekko promises spam-free search results and could be a boon for legitimate search engine optimisation companies and their search marketing customers.
Now in public beta, developers behind the spam-free search engine have added a number of new features to the site and the inventors of the new technology hope that the venture will become profitable once it hits between one and two million queries a day.
Chief executive officer Rich Skrenta and founder Mike Markson have no intention of usurping Google from the top spot in the world of search, but hope their technology will add another facet to online search.
The search engine uses public participation to push forward its algorithm development.
In a blog post, Skrenta said: "We realised we could make web tools that let users sign up and help make the search engine better.
"If we opened up the process, we could not only get orders of magnitude more people involved than we could ever hope to employ, we could also create an open, accountable process around the search engine relevance data."
As the developers have already mentioned, they don't want to take on Google, but Blekko's public beta release could signal the beginning of the end for search engine spamming - something which would boost the profile of legitimate search engine optimisation firms and their marketing techniques.
