WiseNut

Overview

Strengths	Weaknesses
Large database Very useful categorization of sites	Retrieval numbers considerably less than the stated size would indicate. Very minimal search functionality (no truncation, minimal Boolean, not case-sensitive, no field searching...)

What Happens Behind the Scenes

WiseNut automatically "AND"s all terms and ranks the records based on popularity. Unlike Google, which uses a popularity value based on all records in its database, WiseNut takes into account the popularity of other records that used the particular search term.

WiseNut does an analysis of the content of retrieved records that allows it to sort the records "on-the-fly" into categories (WiseGuides). These categories, which will remind you of Northern Light's "Custom Search Folders" allow easy narrowing of a search.  Whereas Northern Light uses pre-established (controlled-vocabulary) categories, WiseNut categories are created at the time of the search.
 

Search Features

Boolean

WiseNut provides minimal Boolean.

An AND is done automatically.  WiseNut will only retrieve records retrieved that contain all of the words in your query

[WiseNut makes use of the plus sign, but not for an AND. The plus is used by WiseNut  to force searching of stopwords. e.g., "+The +Who"]

There is no OR capability.

A NOT is accomplished by use of the minus sign.

Example:    cookies -recipes
 

Field Searching

        The only field that can be searched is language.

         Language

This cannot be done directly within a search but can be done by first choosing the language(s) of interest from the " Set Preferences " page.

The Set Preferences page allows you to chose one or more languages from a list of 25.  By doing so, only records in those languages will be retrieved. The pull-down window allows you to specify any of 21 language encodings (Cyrillic, etc.)
 

Phrase Searching

Phrases can be searched either by use of quotation marks or by using the "With this Exact Phrase" box on the " Try WiseSearch " page.

Truncation

WiseNut has no truncation capability.

Case Sensitivity
 

WiseNut is not case-sensitive, so it should not be a first-choice when searching many acronyms.

Results Pages

Sample Record:

1. Online Strategies - Seminars for Effective Web Research
       ...nline Strategies Training Researchers To Use the Web More Effectively If Researchers in Your...
       [See 2 more pages from this site!]
       http://www.onstrat.com/  [Sneak-a-Peek]

WiseNut displays one or two lines of excerpts of text that surround the query terms that retrieved the record ("Key Word in context")

Retrieving terms are shown in bold

The "Sneak-a-Peek" option shown in each record supposedly allows you to view a site without leaving the WiseNut site, but whatever subtle difference there is between this and simply clicking on the link to the site is far from obvious.

Since WiseNut "clusters" results from the same site, the "See more pages from this site" will take you to the additional pages. The number shows how many there are.
 

WiseGuide Categories

    Based on semantic relationships, WiseGuide organizes your results into various categories.

    Example:
Search Engines (15) [search this]
 
• The plus indicates that there are subcategories provided. Click on the plus to see them.
• The number following the category shows how many of the sites WiseNut placed in the category.
• Clicking on "Search This" will search that phrase, yielding other records discussing that topic and probably including records not retrieved by your original query -- basically a "related sites" feature.

Directory

Special Features

WiseWatch - Adult Content Filter

WiseWatch is WiseNut's adult content filter . The default is "off" and it can be turned on from the Set Preferences page.
 

Try WiseSearch Page

This WiseSearch link on the home page is the closest WiseNut comes to having a Help page.

It provides three search boxes that can be used to search specifying:
            "WITH ALL of these words
            "WITHOUT ANY of these words"
            "WITH this EXACT PHRASE"

This is followed by an explanation that indicates you could just as well have used these options in the query box on the home page.

The most important thing explained on this page is that the plus is used in WiseNut the same way it is used in Google.  [Like Google, the WiseNut people prefer to make life more difficult by not using the plus for its usual function of performing an AND.]  In WiseNut and Google, the plus is used to force the search of stopwords (small, common words that are usually ignored).

If you want to search for "The Who" you have to search for:

"+the +who"

To search for "to be or not to be":

Set Preferences Page

This link on the WiseNut's home page takes you to a page where you can specify:

• Display 10, 20, 40, 50, or 100 results per page
• Clustering either on or off (Only one page per site shown or all pages shown on results pages.)
• Languages (see above under Field Searching)
• WiseGuide categories shown or not shown
• WiseWatch (adult content filter) either on or off

When you make your choices on this page, be sure to click "Save" at the bottom. Clicking "Use Defaults" will reset the choices to the defaults.

Summary

WiseNut is in its infancy and therefore shows a lot of weaknesses, especially the lack of advanced features and retrieval numbers that are not reflective of its claimed size.  However, it also shows a lot of promise and you can probably expect to see a lot of enhancements coming along pretty quickly.  Give it a try.

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