Sproose, a social search engine that allows users to rank results which I wrote about back in February, has updated, making it easier for users to rank the index of results.

Simply run a search, find a site that you like and click on ‘I like it’ to move it up the rankings. And move it up the rankings you can. I took a site that was listed in the 100th position and turned it into one ranked on the first page.

While it’s a nice idea, I think for one person to be able to manipulate results to that extent is slightly extreme. Yes, I know that it’s only because there were a few votes and it won’t happen in a subject area with lots of results, but until Sproose gets to the point I think it’s a valid criticism.

I also found that I couldn’t ‘unvote’ the page either; there wasn’t an ‘oops’ button, and while I could remove a page, it was only removed from my version of the index, so I couldn’t backtrack that way. I still think that there’s some way to go before this concept starts to work properly, and it’s a system that looks like it’s open to abuse.

Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

Related Topics: Search Engines: Social Search Engines

About The Author: Phil Bradley See more articles by Phil Bradley