Silver Clipboard

Search With Banana Slug: Productive Mess on the Internet

Ever notice that the first ten hits on google are almost identical, no matter the search term? The first link is wikipedia and the remaining nine are commercial sites. Getting tired of that yet? I know I am.

The book The Perfect Mess suggests a different kind of search engine: Banana Slug. Banana Slug bills itself as the ‘long tail’ search engine. When you type in your search query, Banana Slug adds one random word before scanning its index. Type in ‘Wellington Grey’ and Banana Slug will actually search for ‘Wellington Grey +Foxtrot’. It’s amazing how well adding this bit of noise cuts through the usual search result cruft.

While I still use google for most things, Banana Slug has become an excellent backup and a great assistance when I just can’t quite find something on google.

[Click here to try Banana Slug]

–

Header photograph by David Sifry