Mamma.com unveils health search engine
Montreal-based meta-search engine Mamma.Com has announced the beta release of
Mamma Health Services.
The new vertical health search engine is the first
in a line of "deep web" vertical search tools by Mamma.com for release over the
next twelve months.
A vertical search engine is one that focuses on
unique range of subjects, such as health, travel, or shopping, while the term
"deep web" is used to define areas of the web not commonly indexed by search
engines.
MammaHealth.com cites references from seven or eight highly
reputable sources including WebMD.com, Medicine Net, Health Day, and the UK
National Health Service. Searchers are presented with an easy to read page
providing quick reference answers which are arranged in order to educate and
inform, with the first results leading searchers through four early sections
labelled "about", "causes", "symptoms", and "treatment".
After the
"treatment" section, there is a news section constantly updating information
from the pages of the trusted sources referenced and a further section labelled
"metasearch" providing all results found in the databases of the trusted
sources.
Mamma.com CEO Guy Faure said in an interview: "Our deep web
Health Search offers a search experience unlike any other. It's the fastest,
easiest way for Internet users to find in-depth, non-biased information on any
health-related topic. We don't just deliver 'close' results, but results that
are dead-on accurate - and hand-picked from multiple, credible medical sources
from across the web.
"Our technology does more than aggregate results
from various content providers for medical information; we crawl deep into the
websites of certain handpicked, trusted, medical websites to extract and format
results in a easy to understand, and comprehensive manner."
MammaHealth
does not yet feature paid advertising. The company claims it is keen to avoid
paid advertising on the Health-vertical, but would not rule it out for future
vertical search engines.
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