Wikipedia founder launches search engine.

Search Wikia

An internet search engine that draws on human recommendations is due to make its first public appearance today, although even its founder warns that it will take some time to tell if the experiment can yield useful results.

Created by Jimmy Wales, the man behind online encyclopedia Wikipedia, the search service will let users rate the relevance of results on a five-star system, then apply that information to shape future search results shown to others.

It will also draw on ideas from online social networking to try to establish reputations for its users and decide whose ratings should carry the most weight.

The success of Wikipedia, now one of the 10 most visited sites on the internet, has guaranteed huge interest in Mr Wales's latest experiment, known as Wikia. In an interview, he said that his aim was "to build a completely freely licensed, open- source search engine" that would be far more transparent than Google and other existing services, which keep their algorithms for ranking search results a secret.

Sceptics have argued that Mr Wales's approach risks exposing his service to "spammers" who try to trick search engines into promoting their sites. Mr Wales himself predicted that it would take "a minimum of two years" for his service to yield results that competed with existing engines.

The new Wikia search engine will start with results drawn from its own machine-powered ranking, then try to refine these with ratings from actual users. While the service is open to anyone, only those who sign up, and disclose their identities, can submit ratings.

Unlike the encyclopedia, which is run by a not-for-profit foundation, the Wikia search engine is being built as a commercial venture, and Mr Wales said he hoped eventually to make money from selling advertising on the site.