Eurekster Swicki Blog

One of the things we are pleased to see is that if your swicki is included in the directory the amount of traffic it gets is increased significantly. Given this, the name of your swicki is quite important. If you have a swicki all about termites and you name is Stan you could call your swicki
-Termite Search Engine or
-Stan's Search Engine
No prizes for guessing which name gets more users interested in termites clicking on it. It seems like the more descriptive you name the better it is likely to do as it explains to the users what it's all about and attracts the right sort of users and searches.

We love hearing your feedback and we have had lots of requests for new features that we are busy working on. I can't resist sharing some of the most positive feedback - here's a sample......

"...I find your project fantastic; it is the most refreshing idea I have seen on the internet since long time ago."

"I really love the look and concept of Swicki! Good luck with it"

"Hi, I only just found out about your swicki tool and I love it! I created a swicki on learning and knowledge management and put an alert on my weblog. After that I saw so many other sites already used the tool. Congratulations!"

"I adore the Swicki search results and like how the swickis include tag clouds."

"I think that Eurekster.com is terrific! I am anxiously awaiting the ad model to roll out."

"I like the fact I can remove sites form the search results when they are completely irrelevant."

"I think the concept and the layout and everything is fantastic...."

"Love the Swicki! Great tool. Your business model makes a lot of sense too."

"I absolutely love and was surprised by the relevance of the results."

"This is very impressive. Being able to see what people are searching for and what they are subsequently pulling up is also hugely useful."

"I really like the comparison view showing a Swicki search compared to a Google search. Google remains extremely important as the premier general search tool. However, I see tools like Swicki as adding value to topic specific sites because the search is narrowly focused to issues of reader importance."

"The swicki functionality completes my blog with a powerful search engine and community tool. "

"You are onto a great concept with Swicki."

"I really like the concept, and your design. Especially the set up process."

"I love swicki. It's way cool. "

"Thanx! You've got a great search tool. Well done!"

"Swicki is of great service. It is of wonderful use."

"Looks very cool!"

"I absolutely love your search engine. Is it possible for you to create a branded version for my site using our logo. " (stay tuned - this will be available shortly!)

We're pleased that so many of you created Asian language swickis but there were a few parts of our system did not handle that so well. This is working much better now and searches, results, and Swicki control fields should work fine in multibyte character sets. As always let us know if you find any issues.

You have to love the Internet as soon as you start getting enough traffic someone is trying to work out how to spam your system. It has just started happening on some swickis and I guess we will take it as a compliment that so many swickis are getting out there someone wants to hijack them.

The problem
What was happening is that people were repeatedly searching on a particular term in a swicki and clicking on their site in the results. Our automated system determined that the community found this term and site interesting and promoted it to the buzzcloud for all to see but often it was totally irrelevant to the users.

The solution
Now the moderator of a swicki can approve any changes to the tags in the buzzcloud. This is similar to the idea of having a blog with moderated vs. un-moderated comments. Click on "Manage Buzzcloud" from "My Swickis" page. Shortly you will have the option to receive emails to approve changes and be able to have your swicki totally unmoderated.

This change has the added benefit of letting the swicki owner know how it is being used, the terms people are searching for and how often they are searching. We are looking at adding more functionality like this as most swicki owners are probably unaware how many people are using them and what they are doing.

You will notice that from you can see a graph of the number of searches from your swicki from "my swickis" page. The aim of this is to let you know how much your swicki is being used. Some of you will be surprised at the quantity of searches - the main reason for that is that being listed in our directory gives a boost in traffic. Some folks have reported their swicki getting more traffic than their blog or site and this is a great thing. We suspect that over time swickis will be come independently valuable community tools.

We've been meaning to update the look and feel of the results page for some time now. We've taken your feedback and put alot of time and thought into how the page looks as well as how it is coded. A couple of things you will notice:

• Fixed page width: we fixed the text line length to the optimal 12-18 words for easier scanning and reading
• Integrated header and search box: rearranged the header elements to emphasize the focus of each swicki
• On-hover moderator tools: the promote/demote controls that are displayed for moderators are now more accessible and less intrusive (shown in image)

This new design is the foundation on which we will be launching a bunch of new features, such as allowing moderators to brand and theme their results. Keep sending us your ideas and suggestions!

We do not currently show sponsored listings on swickis so they generate no revenue at the moment. However we will introduce this in the future and we want to give users an idea of how valuable an asset they are building. We estimate that some swickis could actually generate up to $30,000 a year in revenue to their owner, and be worth up to $300,000 if a buyer used typical methods for valuation - not bad for a few hours work! Check out the calculations for your own swicki from the "my swickis" page - the link is under the graph for your swicki ( alternatively click here for an example calculation )

We have not worked out the details or timing of the affiliate program but we commit to the following things:
-Swicki owners/creators will take a bigger share of the revenue than Eurekster
-You will earn revenue on all traffic from your swicki - whether it comes from a link from your site or from traffic via our directory or other means

Here are some simple things you can do to make your swicki more valuable:
-Get it installed on more sites/blogs
-Blog/talk about it
-Make sure the buzzcloud is regularly updated (edit buzzcloud page)
-Ensure that the results are great for all the terms in your buzzcloud by promoting / demoting results - we will be making the editing of results easier shortly

Someone is going to create a swicki around a topic that you are an expert on or passionate about and may end up building a significant asset along the way - it may as well be you!