For example, imagine you publish a blog about labor unions. Your visitors frequently perform keyword searches using the word "labor" to find what they're looking for. A universal search for "labor" would produce many unhelpful results--content about pregnancy, birthing, premature births, and maternity leave.
By installing a Swicki on your site, users can customize their search results. They can vote up the relevant results they see--those on labor unions--and vote down the irrelevant results. The search engine learns from its users.
Swicki is a play on the words search and wiki, implying that its value comes from user input. The tool is provided free by a company called Eurekster. It can also produce some additional income for your site, if you elect to show the paid ads Swickis offers. For more information, see:
#www.Swicki.com#
You'll be able to design the look of your Swicki and receive a snippet of code to insert the Swicki into your site--the entire process takes about 20 minutes.
Another popular vertical search tool is provided by Rollyo, which promises to help users "roll your own" search engine. For details, visit: