Hakia: Help Us Guide Web Searchers to Credible Websites

From the press release:

"Semantic search engine hakia announced an open call to librarians and information professionals to participate in a new program to unlock credible and free Web resources to Web searchers. Currently, hakia is generating credibility-stamped results for health and medical searches to guide users towards credible Web content. These results come from credible Web sites vetted by the Medical Library Association. Now, hakia is aiming to further its coverage to all topics, with the participation of librarians and information professionals.

A popular Web source may not always be credible, and a credible Web source may not always be popular. hakia is the first search engine to channel the collective knowledge of librarians and information professionals to generate credibility-stamped results using semantic technology. This is in contrast to leading general search engines like Google, which rely mostly on the popularity of keywords and Webpages. For an example of what a credibility-stamped search looks like on hakia today, try a search for: What causes heart disease?

Librarians and information professionals can suggest URLs leading to the most credible Websites on a given topic. hakia will process the sites with its proprietary QDEX (Query Detection and Extraction) technology and make them available to Web searchers in credibility-stamped search results. Each month hakia will give away thank-you prizes, ranging from a book donation to two conference grants, to participants.

"By having information experts suggest sites to hakia, we can guide searchers to relevant and credible information on the Web. As a search engine, we will rely on information professionals’ collective knowledge to add a dimension to search: credibility," said Melek Pulatkonak, President and Chief Operating Officer of hakia, at the Web Search University event in Washington DC.

"The campaign that hakia is starting is a great way to leverage the never-ending knowledge and information analysis skills of the information professional in building a Web database full of the web resources that are most useful, and most importantly, have the most credibility," said Gary Price, Editor, ResourceShelf.com. "This is a new chapter for library collection development. I hope this is only the beginning."

To learn more or suggest credible Web sites, please visit http://club.hakia.com/lib/.