Profusion Web Search Engine Optimization Information

Profusion was originally created and co-founded in 1996 by Dr. Susan Gauch, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Kansas. Currently, Profusion is owned by Intelleseek, which acquired Profusion in April, 2000. Corporate headquarters are located at Cincinnati, Ohio.

Profusion is a Meta search engine that performs both general web searches and specialized database searches. The main sites it accesses include: About, Altavista, LookSmart, MSN, Teoma, Yahoo!, AllTheWeb, AOL, Lycos, Netscape and WiseNut.

Profusion can search up to 10 engines at the same time. But what makes it unique is its capability to search what Intelleseek refers to as “The Invisible Web,” or Deep Web. This is geared toward finding specialized information from databases not situated within the mainstream. Catagories range from Business, Government, Science, Legal and more. For example, under the category ‘Legal,’ users can filter through searchfindlaw.com or nolo.com for information. Other database examples include The New York Times and the US Patent Database.

Before the search results are displayed, users can witness Profusion at work. After entering and submitting a search, Profusion shows multiple load bars for each engine it searches, and the time it takes to complete each search. This seems to be more of a gimmick, since the usefulness of this feature is hampered by how quickly it disappears. It’s only displayed for a few seconds before the search engine results page, or SERP, loads. Users can stop a search query before it is complete by clicking a stop link.

When a query is performed, Profusion merges duplicates and removes broken links. By default, results are ranked by relevance, but users can choose to view by relevance or source, and sort results by score, title or URL. These features can be accessed from the SERP. Paid results are displayed before main results.

Profusion claims their search algorithm is highly advanced, with the ability to understand the context of a user’s search request.

At a glance, here are some more interesting profusion features:

Alert Service:

Users who sign up for free membership can set up Profusion Alerts. These come in two forms, which include Page Alerts and Search Alerts. Page Alerts tell a user when changes have been made to a specified website (such as news updates). Search Alerts lets the user know when a former query turns up new results. Alert notifications come via email and wireless.

Advanced Search:

Search Type: Users can refine searches via advanced commands, such as And, All, Boolean etc.

Show Results: Results per page can be set anywhere between 1-30, or all results can be displayed on one massive page.

Timeout: Timeout refers to the amount of time Profusion will search a site before it stops. Timeout can be set between 10 and 240 seconds.

Other Cool Features:

Profusion highlights search terms within the SERP, and has a spellchecker that analyzes terms typed into the search bar, offering corrections.