IAC Launches Rushmore Drive New Black Search Engine

Rushmore Drive Homepage  Vizion Interactive Reading Time: 2 minutes

Black Web Enterprises, a company owned by IAC (IAC also owns the Ask.com search engine), has launched Rushmore Drive, a search engine that is the first of its kind to attempt to deliver more relevant search results to the black community.

According to a news release today, Rushmore Drive uses “patent-pending technology, a vertical search algorithm” to deliver search results based on “increased penetration of sites heavily trafficked by the Black community.” It uses technology called SearchPlus, which is apparently technology that combines general search results, news search results, and job search results, with a dynamic layer of Black-targeted search results and user-generated content.

I performed a search for “search engine optimization” on Rushmore Drive and was surprised by the search results.

Search Engine Optimization Search Results

While I am not surprised that SEO Chat is the first result, I’m puzzled as to why a web design and development firm, a Virginia web design firm, and an Atlanta website design firm show up in the top 10 search results for “search engine optimization”. I do like the addition of the “narrow your search” and related news and video results that are displayed, though. This is the way Universal Search should be displayed; I’m not so sure about including news, video, and pictures right amongst the organic search results.

Search Engine Marketing Search Results

I also took a look at the search results for “search engine marketing” and found similar search results that could be tweaked a bit. I’m glad to see SEMPO be the top search result (which is appropriate) but again, web design firms, and blackwebportal.com and blackstudents.com just does not belong in the search results for “search engine marketing”.

Suggest a Site

The suggest a site feature is interesting, and I’m actually glad that a search engine (especially when it’s newly launched) puts such a feature right there at the end of the search engine results pages.

According to Rushmore Drive, as one of their first public awareness initiatives, the search engine will be introducing a featured called “Road to November 4”, an interactive online forum for the Black community that has tools and information about the upcoming 2008 Presidential Election. RushmoreDrive.com has officially invited all of the Presidential candidates to participate in the forum–and Senator Hillary Clinton accepted.

Rushmore Drive says that “Senator Clinton will share her thoughts on the importance of the election in the Black community and she will answer a question each day from a member of our community from April 10-17, 2008.”

Check out this new black search engine at RushmoreDrive.com (UPDATE:   Please note that Rushmore Drive has been closed.)