Don't miss out on the good sites !

Want to browse lots of good results from two leading authorities, in a quick compact clean format ?

DoubleTrust is based on the simple premise that trusting two authorities is better than one. You want better search results, but don't want to use the top two search engines separately. DoubleTrust solves the problem for you. 

Best of the both
It fetches results from two leading authorities on web search and shows you what BOTH of them think are good results (the STARS). These are the most relevant results from their mutual agreement. It also shows you were they conflict (the ORPHANS). ORPHANS reveal the top sites which you would not have discovered using just one engine alone. It does all the dirty work for you. Try it !

You do not miss ANY results compared to just using one search engine.

Presentation that respects your perception

The Table Format for DoubleTrust has been scientifically designed to present search information in the most effective way. Its clear separation of different elements makes quick searching a breeze. We also show the top URL in bold , because we think the URL matters a  great deal today in identifying good websites, apart from the TITLE or DESCRIPTION. Just use a regular search engine and compare with DoubleTrust and you will see what we mean. There are many other cool features also. Here is a quick primer on the table format.

Efficiency is the key
As an added benefit, it also shows almost 80 results on just one page in a very compact form. This can take quite a while if done separately with each engine. DoubleTrust shortens the time significantly.  Good for zooming in to interesting pages very quickly.

Its surprising how these two can differ for most of the searches and DoubleTrust can yield interesting insights which may not be found by using one alone. I have personally found many quality results by consulting both engines, rather than depending on one and saved a lot of time in the process. See some example below.

Try it a few times and you will see what you are missing. You will discover many new interesting sites, while also saving time. 

shows you the cream of the results, which are ranked well by both.

  shows results not shown by Yahoo.

  shows results not shown by Google.

"This is brilliant. Very useful and efficiently compact results."

"Cool. I think the biggest visual difference your engine has has to do with the whole orphan/non-orphan presentation. It is a good way of separating what's valuable and what's not."

"DoubleTrust is an interesting and fun search engine that combines and then ranks listings retrieved from Google and Yahoo"

News

DT featured in BusinessWeek this week. 

DoubleTrust given the best rating in an informal engine comparison.

Review on SearchEngineWatch

Review by Tara Calishain, author of Google Hacks

Compare search results with DoubleTrust: WebProNews

Compact Representation of Results

For the same content, the interface can make a BIG difference. Compact but highly useful representation of results (also allowing you to search very quickly , saving time) is another important goal of DoubleTrust.

1. Highly compact but full representation of around 80 results using a table. This should be sufficient for most searches.

2. Site descriptions in DHTML balloon (move mouse over URL), allowing convenient navigation of results.

3. Graphical representation of page sizes to quickly identify pages with most content. 

If you are looking for an essay on "American History" for example, you might be interested in pages with more content say 60k than pages just 5k in size. But the 5k page may contain useful links, so its really a judgment call. But the point is, it gives the user more freedom in choosing search results.

4. Color coding of domains to easily identify different types of sites. 

For example, if you are looking for research related stuff, .edu sites may be more relevant than .com sites. Recently Yahoo does something similar to seperate out info sites from commercial sites via machine learning techniques. 

Other Features

1. You can launch Google or Yahoo directly from the DoubleTrust search page to see the Search Engine results. The links are located on the top of each ORPHANS table.

DoubleTrust introduces the unique concept of TrustRank. 

Meta-search has this problem of doing its own thing with results and taking control away from the user. TrustRank and Trust-o-Meter give the control back to the user on the search engine preferences. Its quite simple: Your trust level decides the ranking of the common results amongst the two engines. If you trust Google more , Google results get pushed up more than Yahoo's.
So you get to keep your beliefs, while you still combine results at the same time !

How is TrustRank Computed ?

TrustRank = C * ( GoogleTrust / GoogleRank + YahooTrust / YahooRank )

where C is a constant. GoogleTrust indicates amount of trust in Google: higher it is , more trust you have. Same applies for YahooTrust.
Note that higher TrustRank means more relevance here. 

This expression drastically increases the score for well ranked websites. TrustFactor further multiples the score of well ranked websites from a particular engine giving these results more preference than the other engine in the final ordering.

For example, searching for "movies" does not return the  Apple Trailers site on Google which is one of the leading sites for Hollywood trailers, but its there in Yahoo Orphans on the top.

Credit also goes to Chris's page which led me to think about this one. Its mainly a different way of thinking about and presenting the same information.

Relevance Test

Also checkout an interesting test  doing blind tests for testing relevance. Surprisingly, the top search engines rank extremely close in their ratings. This is not a full blown study though.

Your comments, suggestions, and bug reports are vital for DoubleTrust. Please feel free to drop in any comment you like.  

Depending on my schedule, I will be glad to incorporate your suggestions ( I work on this only on Sundays). This is not a mainstream website but an experimental search project written on a curiosity inspired weekend. The idea originated from a chat with my brother Aman Gupta.

Feedback can be emailed or left at the Blog

If you find this interesting, or think this be useful to you in any manner, a couple of bucks donation would be greatly appreciated.

-- Ashish Gupta

Computer Science Department
Northwestern University
Evanston , Illinois