Clusty

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The Clusty "patch"
The Clusty "patch"

Clusty is a metasearch engine developed by Vivísimo which offers clusters of results. Vivísimo is a company built on unique Web search technology developed by Carnegie Mellon University researchers. (Interestingly Lycos, a search engine that was popular a decade earlier, was also developed at the same university.) Clusty adds new features and a new interface to the previous Vivisimo clustering web metasearch. Different tabs also offer metasearches for news, jobs (in partnership with Indeed.com), U.S. government info and blogs. Customized tabs allow users to select sources for their own metasearch to create personalized tabs.

Clusty has free toolbars for Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox, as well as a Mycroft Project search plugin for Mozilla and Firefox.

Contents

A cluster is a group of similar topics that are related to the original query. The clusters are presented to the user through the Desktop metaphor of Folders. The aim of this search engine technique is to organize numerous search results into several meaningful categories (clusters).

The user benefits include:

  1. Get an overview of the available themes or topics.
  2. Via one or two clicks on a folder and subfolders, arrive at interesting search results that may be too far down in the ranking.
  3. View similar results together in folders rather than scattered throughout a list.

Clusty.com screenshot with the query "apricots"
Clusty.com screenshot with the query "apricots"

A search on Clusty for "Apricots" returns the clusters:

  • Dried (67)
  • Delicious (13)
    • Glazed (3)
    • Sweet, Juicy (3)
    • Fresh (4)
    • Kitchen (3)
    • Other Topics (2)
  • Orange (9)
  • Turkey, Export (11)
  • Chocolate, Dipped (12)
  • Fresh apricots (11)
  • Peaches, Nectarines (11)
  • Salad (7)
  • Apricots Know (7)
  • Chicken (7)

Many of these clusters can be opened, as "Delicious" has been, for further refinement.

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Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

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Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.