Webmaster Outpost
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With quotes from Bob Massa, founder of SearchKing, Inc.
How many times have you searched on the one of the major search engines and thought to yourself, “I can do a better job than that”? I know, it looks easy, but unless you’re a seasoned programmer, there’s a lot more to building a search engine. If you thought this article was going to help you build another general-purpose search engine, sorry to disappoint you.
One of the reasons the major search engines fail to provide truly relevant search results is that by definition a general-purpose search engine can never become expert on any given topic. If you want to make an impression on our “Internet society”, select a subject matter that you are deeply interested in and develop a “vortal” (or vertical portal) that you can channel all of your energy into.
While you may think, “okay, that sound’s great” you’re probably still thinking of how you’re going to build the next great vortal engine. STOP!
The Internet boom/bust kicked out so many innovative ideas and technology that it will be quite a challenge to come up with an original technical solution to such a basic need: organized leads to quality content. Don’t waste you’re energy, instead devote yourself to your subject matter and get the tools from someone who has already built them. Then instead of being frustrated, you can have fun running a fully functional Internet search engine.
We strongly recommend a service provided by SearchKing, which began business as an Internet search engine and web hosting company in 1997. Take advantage of their FIVE years of experience -- SearchKing is one of the pioneers in developing portal and search engine software and services. A portal serves as a directory of web sites of interest to a certain audience (i.e., a directory for small business owners, or a directory of online games and entertainment).
With the SearchKing Portal Network software, you can build a search service focused on a location like your own home town, or you could build a community around a topic such as football, hunting, sewing, just about anything you want. You can use the spider feature to get your own pages on top of your own search engine for every single search. You can use the SearchKing database to automatically have a highly relevant search engine that can be used to direct your visitors where YOU want them to go.
Free web hosting sites like AngelFire and GeoCities are there so that those companies can sell advertising space. SearchKing's goal is to provide you with the tools, training, and support needed to become successful. In understanding that most any business venture comes with expenses and sometimes challenges, we will strive to provide you with the support and utilities to accomplish your goals in the most efficient manner possible.
The SearchKing "Portal" Directory (Vdirectory) is a collection of independently owned and operated topic specific and geographically specific portals (also known as "Vertical Portals") provided by SearchKing's Portal Solutions Program. SearchKing hosts the largest collection of Vertical Portals (Vortals) on the Net.
Using these “Out-of-the-box” tools, you’ll have your site up in a matter of minutes – the administrative interface is entirely browser based. You’ll never have to deal with ftp uploads! While it's not absolutely necessary to know HTML to get your portal up and running, having at least some knowledge of HTML will go a long way in making your job easier.
The cost of the service and available upgrades is nominal when you compare them to having to pay for your own hosting (it’s included!) and the programming, and time it takes to fix bugs, etc. and backup the data, etc. SearchKing is the foundation and traffic generating center of the world's largest network of independently owned portals. It’s the best of both worlds: you own the portal, but only have to work on the content not the programming.
Oh, and best of all, you can sign-up for their affiliate program and make money from your new creation!