Similicio.us - Find Similar Sites Through URL Search

A self-described 'home-brewed association engine,' Similicio.us aims to find web sites that are similar to others you enjoy. You enter the URL for the site and the engine finds similar sites. The creator bases his searches on the tags and bookmarks on del.icio.us. The site is simple and straightforward, but lacked basic explanations of how to work the site (for those of us not so well versed in these types of search offerings).

This is an experiment to see whether I can quickly find relevant web sites based on people's tags/bookmarks on del.icio.us, using a home-brewed association engine. It answers the question 'people who tagged this site also tagged what other sites'. I am using it mostly to find blogs that are similar to the ones I read, and to find new popular web sites that are in my area. Because of hardware constraints (you won't believe how little I pay to have this site up), and my rule of hitting del.icio.us less than once every 10 seconds, I'm only getting the popular stuff from del.icio.us. Still, the result has been quite interesting. I hope this can be useful to others as well.

Search engines continue to be the hot ticket on the internet right now, and this is one more approach to finding the desired sites and information you want online. As always, I also like the fact that the site has one single purpose and seems committed to perfecting the art of their mission.

This site is targeted at those who know what a URL is. That, to me, is extremely limiting and will impede the effectiveness and use of the site. Further, there were no good examples of how to use the site and even fewer examples of successful searches. In other words, if the creator wants to reach more people he needs to write it for the layperson.