Inktomi Introduces Directory Engine

Inktomi Corp. Tuesday unveiled a new directory engine that uses advanced technology to generate more accurate search results.

The Inktomi Directory Engine leverages human intelligence to categorize millions of documents within an automated Web directory. It also allows portals to integrate their own content with the ability to conduct advanced searches and do comparison shopping.

Inktomi said its Concept Induction technology uses supercomputing techniques to mimic the way humans classify content. Using this technology, Inktomi said it has built the Web’s largest categorized directory that already has indexed more than 1.3 million documents. Inktomi said the technology also has the ability to search out items that are conceptually similar and return more accurate search results.

Among the companies that have already adopted the new system are Knight-Ridder, VerticalNet and GoTo.com.

The system allows portal editors to add or delete categories and individual documents and easily rearrange subject hierarchies. It also has the ability to pattern future document additions after a search engine’s existing category structure.

The company said the new services are designed to allow portals to create new services that will keep visitors at their sites longer and also generate additional revenues.

David Peterschmidt, Inktomi’s president and chief executive officer, said the new offerings illustrate the fact that a combination of human intervention and technology is necessary to keep up with the Web’s steallar growth.

“The Web grows at a faster rate than any medium in history and the future of Web directories will necessarily be a hybrid of human and machine,” he said.