The Arab Horse gallops into search
Maktoob Group have released Araby.com, an Arabic search engine which is optimized to deliver Arabic-language results from Arabic sources; with specialized search channels including Arabic news sites, photos, blogs and forums. It even has a dedicated channel for searching Islamic topics.
Obviously, what Maktoob Group are aiming for with Araby is to provide a degree of specialization, or local knowledge, that Google is not capable of. This is reflected in the search results for complex Arabic words.
Is this the Arab answer to Google? So far, the Beta looks pretty good and delivers different results to Google Arabic search, specifically providing more weight to Arab bloggers and news sources.
There are also some neat Web 2.0 touches, like the most searched terms of the day (looks a bit like Technorati) and we’ve been told that Araby.com incorporates elements of the Wikipedia Arabic project.
It should be interesting to see how a home-grown effort to develop a comprehensive search engine like this will develop.
Test drive Araby.com and send the Araby team your comments, there’s a ‘comment box’ on the side just for that.
Add comment September 15th, 2006
