'War of Keywords'

Guardian, Search engines' role in radicalisation must be challenged, finds study, 28 July 2016 "The study, undertaken jointly by Digitalis and the Centre on Religion and Geopolitics, will be challenged by those who claim it advocates censorship, has blurred the lines between political Islam and violent extremism and cannot validly quantify the presence of extremism." PDF 'War of Keywords' here

Safe Surfing: New Search Engine Launched For Muslims

RFE/RL, Safe Surfing: New Search Engine Launched For Muslims "Halalgoogling, a new alternative search engine designed to filter "haram" content (content forbidden under Islam) has been launched just in time for the Islamic holy month of Ramadan." Test it yourself halalgoogling.com

Specialized search engines

zdnetasia.com, Specialized search engines not 'Google killers', 27 Sep 2010 "Reza Sardeha, founder and CEO of Muslim search engine I'mHalal, said the site gets an average of 350,000 search queries daily compared with 10,000 six months ago."

Search engines

Allan Jacob, khaleejtimes.com, The Islamic way to a safe search, 15 Sep 2010

"The focus is to develop revolutionary new search technologies that solve search problems. ‘‘Alternative search engines are built for the great mass, which makes them extremely mainstream oriented, while search is mostly culturally biased. This means that search algorithms should calculate the culture, mindset and lifestyle of the user in the determination process of relevancy.’

"As for revenue, the search engine begins testing its advertising platform in two weeks with some high profile brand names. “We’re confident to hit a RPS(Revenue per 1,000 searches) of 1/5 of Google’s already in the first quarter of 2011.”."

More searching questions: Google Instant and 'Islam'

I enjoyed reading this article about Google Instant: Charlie Brooker, Guardian, Google Instant is trying to kill me, 13 Sep 2010 Brooker notes: "As the name suggests, this all happens instantly. It's the internet on fast-forward, and it's aggressive – like trying to order from a waiter who keeps finishing your sentences while ramming spoonfuls of what he thinks you want directly into your mouth, so you can't even enjoy your blancmange without chewing a gobful of black pudding first."

Brooker's article was helpful, and I agreed with much of what he said, including the impact on productivity(!).

It was also relevant as, since Google's launch of Instant, I'd been considering its implications in relation to the core subjects of this blog. In my strictly unscientific and time-restricted test, firstly using google.co.uk as a default and a general search for 'Islam', this is what happened today:

"is":

"is" google.co.uk [14.9.10]

"isl":

"isl" google.co.uk [14.9.10]

"isla":

"isla" google.co.uk [14.9.10]

"islam"

"islam" google.co.uk [14.9.10]

"Islam" first crops up on the second screenshot ("isl"), sandwiched between the Isle of Man and the Isle of Wight(!). No doubt that Islam Channel, Islamic Relief, Islamic Finder and Islamway will be pleased about their prominence through Google Instant, and it'll be interesting to know whether this influences levels of traffic.    

I'm curious to see whether other search engines adopt similar approaches to Google Instant, which may just prove to be irritating to some users(!). There may be a market for slower search, and certainly there's lots of different ways of delivering data, whether it's about Islam or anything else.

The same unscientific test could be usefully applied to other terms, although I don't plan to to that now. It could also be utilised for other versions of Google - it would probably require a simultaneous multi-language search of some kind.

Out of curiosity, this is the same test on google.com

"isl"

"isl" google.com 14.9.10

"isla"

"isla" google.com 14.9.10

"islam"

"islam" google.com 14.9.10

On this one, Islamorada (which is a place in Florida) appears inbetween Islamic Calendar (which goes to a series of possible calender links) and Islamic Finder.

As I discuss in iMuslims and my other work, search can make a difference to the type of information surfers acquire about Islam, especially those seeking introductory data (which goes back to the foundations of this website and Islamic Studies Pathways). Given that Google remains the primary search engine for many users, it's certainly something worth looking at in more detail, and I'd welcome some more research/methodology in this area to augment these initial notes and observations.

And of course, the results could be different tomorrow...

'Religious Search Engines'

Useful report:

Habiba Nosheen, NPR, Religious Search Engines Yield Tailored Results, 13 Sep 2010 "Some Jews, Muslims and Christians are abandoning Yahoo and Google and turning to search engines with results that meet their religious standards."

I'mHalal 1st anniversary

Joanne Bladd, arabianbusiness.com, World's first Islamic orientated search engine 'almost viral' "The founder of I’mHalal, the world’s first Islamic orientated search engine, has said the site is seeing an “almost viral” surge in traffic as it celebrates its first anniversary."

See I'mHalal

Iran search engine plans

VOA, Iran Plans to Create Domestic Internet Search Engine, 30 Aug 2010 "Iran is vowing to replace Western internet search engines with its own homegrown version, amid complaints from the country's supreme leader that the net is being used to corrupt Iranian youth ...

" ... Iranian TV spoke with information technology experts, who demonstrated the prototype of Iran's own internet search-engine, dubbed "ya haq", or "the truth", in an apparent play on words with the U.S. search engine Yahoo. The new site is expected to be fully operational by 2012."

halalify.org

Press release: I-Newswire, Halalify.org Goes Live To Kick-Start The “Halalification” Of The Internet, August 23, 2010 "Webmasters from all over the world can support add a “Halalify” button on their website to start making the Internet more Halal.

"Halalify.org(www.halalify.org) is an initiative launched by I’mHalal(www.imhalal.com) aims to make the World Wide Web a better place."

Further information on these ambitions are here: halalify.org, together with instructions on how to integrate it into websites, should you so wish.

taqwa.me 'crowd-sourced' search engine

Sydney Morning Herald, Search and chat website for the modern Muslim, 10 Aug 2010 "To this end, taqwa.me search results are accompanied by buttons that allow users to rate content as haram or halal (permissible), or to open a topic for discussion with others.

"It's a kind of crowd-sourced approach that enables ''everyday Islamic users'' to thrash out issues connected to Islam. This differs from existing Islamic search engines, such as imhalal.com, that only search approved Muslim websites or return only acceptable results."

Results look like this on my [non-scientific] test:

I like the results page, and the rating option. It's an interesting concept - let's see how this model develops. They use a photo as their opening splash page - not sure if they plan to vary it from day-to-day. Today's is a photo from Gaza...

See for yourself: taqwa.me

Report: ONI, Sex, Social Mores, and Keyword Filtering: Microsoft Bing in the "Arabian Countries"

AFP, Bing blocks online sex searches in Middle East: study, 6 Mar 2010 "The Open Net Initiative (ONI) on Friday said Microsoft's search engine Bing is more prudish than government censors when it comes to sex-related online queries.

"A January test of a Bing version tailored for users in Arab countries showed that it filtered Arabic and English words for sexually explicit content along with queries related to gay, lesbian, bi-sexual or transgender material."

Here's the report page:

ONI, Sex, Social Mores, and Keyword Filtering: Microsoft Bing in the "Arabian Countries" "Microsoft recently added a new layer of complexity to the ongoing debate regarding the filtering and censorship practices of U.S. search engines via its own search engine, Bing. ONI testing reveals liberal filtering by Bing in one of the most censored regions in the world: the Arab countries."

ONI, Sex, Social Mores, and Keyword Filtering: Microsoft Bing in the "Arabian Countries" pdf

Kngine

Mohamed Marwen Meddah, startuparabia.com, Kngine, A New Semantic Web Search Engine, 18 Jan 2010 "Kngine is a new semantic web search engine and question answering engine that was launched from Egypt, aiming to provide more meaningful search results to users."

This looks quite useful, albeit in a competitive market place.

Baidu Hacked

AFP, Pro-Iran hackers hit China's top search engine, 12 Jan 2010 "China's top search engine Baidu was hacked on Tuesday in what state media said was an attack by a pro-Iranian government group that replaced the usual home page with an Iranian flag."

Google search

meedan.net, Double-digit growth for Google search ads in the Arab world, 18 Sep 09

"Search advertising for the global internet giant Google has witnessed a double-digit growth in the Arab world recently despite reports of a decline worldwide, according to the search engine’s business manager."

Amr Khaled > Gummah > Islamic resources

AKI, Egypt: Muslim televangelist uses Youtube to reach the young, "The video-sharing website Youtube is believed to be having a tremendous influence on young Muslims. Egyptian Muslim televangelist and self-professed inspirational speaker Amr Khaled is believed to be among those transforming the popularity of the site."

This article also refers to Gummah:

"Recently, the popular search engine Google had an Islamic variant called Gummah, the name being a play of words "Google" plus the word "Ummah", referring to the Islamic community or nation.

"A search using the word 'sex' in Gummah, takes you to a screen warning: "You may be searching for something that may be contradictory to Islamic laws. Our philosophy is Search-No-Evil, therefore we warn you that bad results may be displayed.""



The search-engine is effective; a search-box from Gummah can be added to sites. There's also a useful news section.

Gummah led me to a couple of other sites of interest:



lilummah offers (according to their blurb) a "parent powered" site:

* "Big collection of videos for kids
* Ability to create your own continuously playing collection
* Add videos from youtube, rate, comment and share them.
* Totally Free and Safe for your kids, all videos are reviewed."

Nice idea. There's a set of clips showing children responding to or reciting the Qur'an. For example, "little child listen to quran" sets the tone. Technically, this has some useful ideas, including the "lights out" on the videos.



Gummah also led me to the beta of Ummah24. "Ummah24 is a communication tool for Muslims to express themselves and share news 140 characters at a time. Sounds like Twitter? Oh yeah! but its for the Ummah." The 140 character challenge is always a difficult one ...

ImHalal

Times Online, Islamic search engine ImHalal hailed a success, 17 Sep 09 "The world’s first "Islamic orientated" internet search engine, which flags content that might be considered "haraam" – or forbidden – by Muslims, has been hailed a success by its creators after it attracted more than 500,000 users in its first two weeks on the web."

Previously blogged: ImHalal

Islamic Search Engine: ImHalal

TG Daily, Islamic search engine hits the web, 1 Sept 09, "Launched by AZS Media, ImHalal.com only returns results that are deemed to be Halal. The search engine uses 'various techniques' to determine which results are Halal (acceptable) or Haraam (forbidden). If a user stumbles across content of an unsuitable nature, the search engine will 'return a negative search advice'."

Not the first Islamic search engine to come along, but an interesting initiative. Test this for yourself here: ImHalal. I just had a quick test of it, and - while there are a few glitches - it seems to work well-enough and quickly. No doubt extra elements will be pulled in in due course. I liked the clarity of the interface. No adverts at present, and I'm not complaining(!) but I'm curious how they plan to make it sustainable economically.

Here's their promo film:

Untitled from AZS Media Group on Vimeo.

Faadi: Pakistani search engine

altsearchengines.com, Pakistani search engine Faadi

"Faadi has an own spider which crawls the Pakistani web sites and collects information in an own index (not a Google custom search as many do at the moment). The collect information about sites in Pakistan of all kind and topics (including Educational, Entertainment, Informative). Unfortunately they do not mention on their site if they only index .pk sites or if they crawl the whole internet to identify other web sites with Pakistani content."

Faadi is here. It looks like a neat and useful search engine (based on a quick search).

Spezify search engine

Spezify Beta has been launched. See Digital Inspiration, New Visual Search Engine Arranges Results in a Large Collage, 21 May 09.

Spezify is an interesting idea, with bags of potential. However, I tried a few 'Islam' related searches, but you really have to be specific (as in the name) with this particular search engine, and ensure that you have plenty of bandwidth too as it is otherwise grindingly slow. Unsurprisingly, the Islam related searches unearthed a mixture of opinions, stereotypes and influences. The Qur'an (obviously more specific) was potentially of greater use. Results look nice, if you have google fatigue.

WolframAlpha

WolframAlpha has gone live. It's a great 'computational knowledge engine'. Nothing specific in an 'Islam' search, but this search on Mecca gives an indication of the kind of data one can obtain from WolframAlpha. WolframAlpha - Mecca I can imagine this will be useful to students and researchers, certainly in terms of the clarity and immediacy of useful data. As yet, I haven't seen any information on other languages being introduced for this.