A Comparative Study of Web Forum Search Engines
Nasiba Alrawi
It is amazing how far we have come in the field of technology and how we depend on technology so heavily. There is a big difference in today's technology and the technology available fifteen years ago. For example, if you had a technical problem back then that you did not have the knowledge to solve, you had to consult a book or ask someone with more experience for advice. For instance, if you had a problem with your car then you might ask around for a good mechanic or attain a Haynes manual for your make and model. However, it is now significantly easier to seek advice and opinion thanks to the world wide web. One can simply browse for a solution and find many to choose from. One thing that is particularly advantageous about this ability is that one can receive a wider variety of feedback from people around the world with varying expertise. There are a lot of webpages you can use to search for products and opinions like Google, Bing, Yahoo!, Ask, AOL, and many more. Those are called Generic Search Engines and they are useful and sufficient in most circumstances. However, as people are increasingly in need of other people’s opinions and feedback on specific issues, other forms of search engine are starting to surface. These are known as Web Forum Search Engines. While major search engines like Google and Bing use an automated approach for indexing the web and delivering relevant content, hundreds of brilliant people are starting to look for ways to add human input into the equation. Generic Search Enginesare somewhat different from the forum engines. Generic Search Engines use automated software to build their databases. This software is called spiders or bots. The software’s job is to collect data from each web page and then add it to the search engine index. So if yousearch for a specific word, then those words are checked against the search engine index that has been created and it returns a list of links to sites and pages that contain that word and they are listed depending on ranking. Sometimes the result you get is really confusing and not what you are looking for and that’s because those engines did not reach a point where humans and computers are able to communicate and understand each other well enough.For example, Google is differentfrom Web Forum Search Engines because Google crawlsthe whole internet while the forum search engine onlycrawls specific domains. Web Forum Search Engines have valuable information as they contain questions, answers, and experience from other people in the form of threads and posts. As forum search engines are a new thing and still under development, it’s unclear which of these search engines works the best and what their relative strengths and weaknesses are. That makes it hard for people to choose which engine to use. This study will provide clarification for some of the features of Web Forum Search Engines, discuss their accuracy, discuss which search engine is best for which category, and will serve to help you choose the best forum engine to use. This study will be focusing on three forum search engines; omgili.com, boardreader.com, and boardtracker.com, will be a systematic comparison of the major forum search engines and seek to understand their strengths and weaknesses.
You may wonder what exactly Web Forum Search Engines are and how can you use them. A forum is a discussion area on a website. A member of said website can post a question that he needs an answer to, post an idea, or answer other members' questions and people can post back their opinions and answers. A “post” is a member's or user's response to an article or message about a topic. Usually posts contain user details and some information about the date and the time of the post. Posts usually have limits as to the number of characters you can submit and vary from one website to another. A “thread” is a collection of posts that is usually ranked according to the dates of submission (most often newer posts rank higher than older ones), but you can of course change how you want to view the thread for a specific topic. The thread will consist of a title, a summary of the post and the original post. There is no limit to how many posts a thread can contain. So, if a member posts a question about a problem with computers, for example, and people start replying to that, then a thread has been created.
People sometimes refer to forums as message boards, discussion groups (similar to an online community), bulletin forums, or just merely web forums. You may think that forums are the same as blogs, but that is not true. Blogs are written by one user and visitors simply respond to a specific topic, while in forums anyone can post to a particular website and start new topics as long as you are a member. Membership usually requires that you agree to follow certain online rules before posting or responding to anything. Forums differ from chat rooms as well. Chat rooms don't save the conversation, so there is no way to access them again after you exit. But with forums you can read anything a member has posted at any time.
Web forums are a significant component of online communication. People rely on asynchronous forums to engage one another in ways that help with critical thinking, suggestion for solving problems and in helping others to gain useful knowledge about a specific topic.Some examples of such forums are omgili.com, boardtracker.om, and boardreader.com. These web forums are the best way to find out what people are saying about pretty much anything.
If you are doing serious research about a topic, the first thing that may come to mind is Google or perhaps Bing since they are the most famous search engines of today. You will find yourself spending a lot of time going through a lot of links trying to find the information you are looking for. On the other hand, you could use a website that allows you to ask questions and let other people answer them. Sometimes someone else has had the same problem as you and their question has already been answered, therefore saving you time and effort. If you spend most of your time looking into suchwebsites then you already have your favorite forums to communicate with experts and knowledgeable people. An example of a forum search engine is Search Engine Watch ( which is a forum search engine exclusively for marketing. Web Forum Search Engines are still a new way of searching and because of that there are limited forum search engines available. Three major forum search engines are omgili.com, boardreader.com, and boardtracker.com.
Omgili is a search engine that focuses on anything from many user content generated platforms to a specific segment of online content. The site is based in Israel and it's an apache web server. It has a rating of 86.74 points according to the Trendworth website ( It had 34.4% of site traffic for the past thirty days and about 22% in the United States alone. Omgili its short for "Oh My God I Love It" the website is mainly for answering questions and providing discussion boards. Omgili is your way to find subjective information and it shows what real people are talking about. If you search for something on the website, it will scan millions of discussion boards worldwide and is able to distinguish between the parts of the forums, such astopics, mailing lists, repliesand post times. The data is structured into standard xml format. Using Omgili’s advanced search capabilities, you can choose to independently search titles, topics or just the replies of a discussion. Omgili is a web crawler ( that recognizes board software such as phpBB, SMF, VBulletin,Invision, and FuseTalk. Some other forums may also be included. Omgili is differentfrom “normal” search engines (Geneneric Search Engines) because of its ability to separate and categorize titles, comments, responses, and dates within the forum.Omgili also offers a "hybrid search,"which is a combination of objective search with Google and subjective search with omgili.
As mentioned before, forum search engines specialize in discussions and posts, so the results only contain real experience and opinions. Generic Search Engines cover more topics andprovide links to generic search terms.Let’ssay you are looking forthe best laptop that has ever been made. A Google search will give you links to companies that say somewhere on their website that their laptop "is the best computer you can find on the market," but in real life that laptop model is the worst thing ever. If you try the same search on a forum engine you will get real opinions and experience, so it's more reliable. Keep in mind that in some scenarios it may take you a while to find what exactly you are looking for, just as with the generic search engine. Search engines return every possible website on their database that matches the query for your search.
Another search engine that is located in Israel is Boardtracker.com and it's powered by phpbb. It provides search and tracking for threads on forums and boards on the web. You can use this forum searchengine to notify you via email about any thread that matches your search in case you wereunable to findone at your timeof search. You can search using the main search bar and the drop down menu that allows you to choose from the categories Boardtracker provides. Registration is required if you want to add a thread or add notification of a new post. The result of your search will be coupled with an icon plusthe date that thread was posted and the number of replies. It will also include the number of views those threads have had.You can get more specific by inputting a date range or a particular website or choosing from one of twenty categories. Additionally, all of the information in Boardtracker’s database is from forum threads only. All extraneous text on a page is excluded by default, which allows for more relevant results.
Lastof all, BoardReader.com has been built using a slandered scheme such as manual partitioning with many different forum sites mapped to different table groupswitheach server that handles the schemes.Because of this, table alterations can easily be made. The site uses something called double data storage with different partitioning to tack links between all indexed sites, which exceeds two billion.BoardReader focuses on providingthe largest repository of searchable information for users. Users can find answers to a question in other posts by members who share similar interests. BoardReader also provides an interface which is compatible with multiple boards. This search engine has some useful and user friendly features such as the ability to use a specific domain to search forums within that domain and an especially appealing feature is the domain profile. This feature shows you how active the domain is and how oftenpages from that domain have been linked. Furthermore, you can use Boardreader to find out what the hottest soundtrack is, the latest movie trailers are, and the most popular internet videos are. You can also blog about these topics with other members. Another important aspect is the domain link. This link is useful in case you want to have your own website and you can’t thinkof a good domain name. The link will give you a list of suggestions for domain names and all you have to do is click on one and buy it. This search engine serveris an Apache server and it’s located inTroy, Michigan in the United States and owned by Effyis, Inc. This search engine is different from omgili.com because you can search according to topics, posts, forums and images. So BoardReader is a forum search engine and a tracking tool. You can monitor forum post topics, comments, forum names, images, and view basic trending data.You can also use theadvanced search settingswhichallow you to filter results by date, language, and domain.
Below is a comparison of the three forum search engines and their ranks and traffic nationwide according to Google, trendworth and Alexa. Alexa and trendworth are web information companies that provide people with information about websites that are widely used. In other words, they are simply tracking tools that provide you with feedback about a website or a domain. Please keep in mind that the numbers change from day to day according to the use of that website or page.
Domain / Omgili.com / BoardReader.com / Boardtracker.comGoogle ranking (from 10) / 5 / 6 / 5
Rating / 86.74 points / 59.06 point / 34.6 points
Alexa Rank / 12242 / 2155 / 55,832
Below are tables of all of the features that each search engine offers. Each search engine is different. For example, Omgili.com has its own shopping center while the others do not. In my opinion, omgili.com is better as it provides more options and you can use the search engine from anywhere in your browser. Besides that, it provides widgets that work more efficiently than the other domains. Look for more details in the tables below.
1- Omgili features are:
Features / Description / ExampleOmgili stream widget / You can use this feature to add a customized streaming widget that updated every 60 seconds. You can choose the subject you want your widget to show and then copy the code lines and add it to your HTML code. /
widget picture showing a subject that has nothing to do with what I am exactly looking for
Searchamabob / With this widget you can add to your website to make its more users friendly. It allows users to search for a phrase they read on your website by highlighting it and choosing to search for it using Google, omgili, or any other search engines. You can add thiswidget to your site just by adding some lines to the HTML code of your website. /
about thewidget (
Add omgili and Buzz Graph to iGoogle homepage / Allow you to access omgili search engine easily and quickly by adding agadgetto iGoogle home page. / picture showing omgili search and Buzz Graph gadget
Omgili online shopping / You can use the omgili website to shop for a lot of things like computers, tools, books and much more. It includes product reviews and shows you where it's offered. Related videos are also included. / I wanted to buy something for my nieces because it was teething time and i found this oneVulli Sophie the Giraffe Teether. (
Omgili opinions / This is an extension you can download to use with Firefox. It looks at the current page you are browsing and tries to find discussions and opinions about the page and when it does it shows you a small icon at the address bar. This feature is not yet compatible with the latest version of Firefox. /
Google@omgili / With this search feature you will get a traditional basis search result with opinions and discussion linked to each result. You can refine your search to only Google or only omgili. You can also refine the search to include only videos, Q and A, and much more. /
Advanced search options / 1- You can use this feature to search within a specific forum by typing what you are searching for followed by inforum:domain name.
2- You can search using a wildcard.
3- You can boost your search by using the ^ character and by that you can control the relevance of that document.
4- You can use AND,OR, NOT, (), +, and - to search. / 1-food inforum:phpbb.com (
2-Tit?e (
3-Mac^2 Mini (
4-(+best +"forum Engine") (
Omgili Q and A / Provides a list of basic questions like information about the website, technical issues that you may face and need solutions for, and some privacy questions. / Omgili FAQ(
Allow searching between time frames / You can search for a discussion that has happened in a specified period of time. There are two methods to accomplish this task. You can type the whole thing in the search box followed by from_date:yearmonthday to_date yearmonthday. Or type the term in the search box and hit search, then adjust the Time Frame tab. I prefer the first method because I can specify exactly what time I am looking for whereas the tab is less precise. / Let say we are searching for mini mac discussions for a month ago. So we use Mac Mini from_date:20100801 to_date:20100901 (
Or you can type in the search box Mac Mini and then adjust the time Frame tab to the past month.
Allow you to choose the number of replies you are looking for / You can search for a discussion form that has a minimum number of replies. You can do this in two ways. Either alter the number of replies in the Minimum number of replies tab after you have made the search (the tab allows result numbers ranging from 2-10), or type the term you are looking for followed by min_replies:number. You can use the second method in case you are looking for a forum with more than 10 replies. / Let’s use the example from before. Type in the search box Mac Mini and then adjust the Minimum number of replies tab to 4. Or type in the search box the following Mac Mini min_replies:4(
Allow to choose the number of users / You can search according to how many different users have participated in a discussion.
There are three ways to search using this feature.
1- Type something in the search box and hit enter, then alter the minimum number of users that participated using the Minimum number of discussing users (ranges 0-10).
2- Type the term you are searching for followed by min_users:number.
3- You can be more specific by using min_engagment:number and that limits the results to discussions where only users who respond with at least 100 characters count. /
Let’s use the example from before. Type in the search box Mac Mini and then adjust the Minimum number of users tab to 4. Or type in the search box the following Mac Mini min_users:4(
2- Boardreader.com features are: