Features of iMetaSearch

iMetaSearch includes a host of features and benefits, including the following ones:

1. Save Time using Conceptual Groups - iMetaSearch uses cutting edge technology called Latent Semantic Analysis to put related results together into groups. These groups are represented by colors, so by scanning down the group column in the Search Results area, you can see which results are related to each other.

The Groups of Results area contains a list of all the groups, one row per group. You can see the group color and description by looking in this area. The group slider control in this area controls the number of groups, from a small number of general groups, to a large number of very specific groups.

2. Finds Better Results with Personal Relevance - Every search result has a checkbox in the Mark column. Whenever you mark a result (by clicking the checkbox), all the relevance scores of all the search results are updated according to how similar they are to the one you just marked. In addition, all search results are automatically sorted so the most similar ones appear on top.

By repeatedly marking results you like, you give iMetaSearch a better and better idea of what you are looking for, and it is able to give those results high relevance and sort them to the top. By doing this, you are giving each results a personal relevance score instead of relying on the generic score supplied by the search engine.

In addition to marking results, you can also mark entire groups in the Groups area, or mark words and phrases in the Extracted Words area.

3. Find Related People and Websites - iMetaSearch can filter the extracted words in a number of ways to help you find people, websites, or words/phrases that contain certain pieces of text.

•	Filter by people - iMetaSearch can filter extracted words to look for people names. Not all the resulting words and phrases will actually be names, but iMetaSearch does its best to find the likely names.

•	Filter by website - iMetaSearch can also filter extracted words to look for websites. It recognizes when a word or phrase is a possible website, although it is not completely accurate.

•	Filter by text - finally iMetaSearch can filter extracted words by only keeping those that contain or do not contain certain words or text. For example, when searching on "flu" you could filter the search words to only show the ones that contain "swine".

This capability is valuable for quickly generating and exporting a list of people, websites, or keywords that fit certain criteria.

4. Zoom In to See More Specific Groups - The number of groups can be adjusted by using the Group slider control. You can zoom in and see small, very specific groups of results or zoom back out and see just the large general groups.

Similarly, you can use the Extracted Words slider control to zoom in and see every word, even those that occur in only one search results, or zoom back out and just see the most common words.

5. Export Search Results for Analysis - If you want to share your search results or analyze them further with another tool, iMetaSearch can export both the search results and/or the extracted words to a Excel (CSV) file.

Exporting results into Excel allows you to do graphical or statistical analysis as well as send results to other people who can view them using Excel.

6. Quickly Perform Related Searches - iMetaSearch can launch an immediate search on any extracted word you choose. Just right click the word, and choose the Quick Search option to start a new search. Once the search finishes, you will be able to view the search results, groups, and extracted words just like a regular search.

By chaining together follow-up searches, you can quickly refine your search to zero in on likely search words and likely results.

7. Track Changes in any Search - iMetaSearch can update any previous search by clicking the Update Search menu item. This reruns the same search, but adds any new search results it finds to the current search and also updates the groups and extracted words to incorporate the new search results.

By doing this on a regular basis, you can keep track of what new search words are becoming more popular and what results are moving up the ranks or falling in rank.

8. Plug-in More Engines for Better Results (only available in Pro version) - New engines can be added just by dropping them into the iMetaSearch data folder and restarting iMetaSearch. The new engines will be available for use, as you will be able to verify by looking at the Engines | Choose Engines menu item which lists all the available engines.

If you use only one search engine, you may miss important results in your search. iMetaSearch widens your search by using many search engines in parallel. Not only does this reduce the chance of missing valuable results, it also speeds up searching, because all the engines are asked for their results at the same time.

You may think that any of the main search engines covers essentially the whole web so using one of them is the same as using many or all of them. There are two reasons why this reasoning is not correct.

•	Many studies have shown that there is surprisingly little overlap among the top results for the main search engines. For example, this study by Penn State University and Dogpile.com found that 84.9% of the top results were unique to only one engine.

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You might think that by diving deep enough into an engine you will get all the relevant results for a particular area. The problem here is that all major search engines limit the number of results you can get, usually in the 1000 to 2000 range. Even if you had the patience to go through potentially hundreds of screens of results you would still bump into the limited number of results returned by search engines.

The two ways around these limitations are to use many search engines, and to refine your search with ever more specific phrases until you have found the "sweet spot" and have a high concentration of good results among the results that are being returned.

9. Gather All Results from Search Engines (only available in Pro version) - many meta search engines limit the search results they get from search engines to the first page of results, or perhaps the first couple of pages. iMetaSearch Pro can get as many search results from the search engines as they an supply. Usually this is between 1000 and 2000 results.

This enables you to dive deep into an engine and gather hundreds of results without having to scan through page after page of results by hand. The free version of iMetaSearch is limited to gathering 100 results at a time.