Internet users have another reason to rejoice, and this reason is definitely big! Scour.com, a meta social search engine was recently launched in the Web world and promises to provide tremendous benefits to the online audience. Interestingly, it encourages voting and commentary on search results pulled from online search giants Google, Yahoo! as well as MSN. Scour blends the best of algorithmic and human powered search, thereby allowing users to find better results online.

President and CEO of Scour, Daniel Yomtobian said that Scour offers people a different way to perform search by introducing the best search results present on the Web, along with a way to gain from the earlier work and feedback of millions of searchers. He agreed that the concept is not new, but believed that the company can bring the elements together in a better manner compared to what other search engines have so far.

The unique search engine distinguishes itself from other social search, community and ratings sites as it:

• Allows users to vote as well as comment on search results

• Offers advanced privacy control

• Gives weight to preferred search engines

• Enables people to redeem search points for VISA gift cards

Scour draws search results from the major three search engines, and from there, it rests on feedback to increase the relevancy of the search results. Once there are enough votes on results, the search result’s rank can either rise or fall which would make listings across all the engines even more relevant on Scour.

Moreover, people can also earn points from what they usually do – Search! They can earn a maximum of 4 points a search via a combination of actions such as:

Search – 1 point

Vote – 2 points

Comment – 3 points

Friend Referral – 25 percent of every friend’s points

At one instance, an average of 4.5 searches a day translates into $25 an annum. Next, adding in referrals with an average of 3 searches a day for each user, 25 friends who join and use Scour could earn the user another $100 per annum.

Yomtobian said that the intention is not to provide users with an alternative income. Rather, the Scour points program is a way for the social search engine to reward the user for helping build the community to enhance search results beyond what the algorithms dictate.