Topix News Search Engine

Topix.net Goes Live With New Look and Features
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​​​​Topix.net, one of the MOST useful news aggregators and search tools on the open web has gone live with a new look and several new features. Here’s what you’ll find:
+ Topix.net is now crawling more than 7000 sources (primarily but not exclusively U.S. publications) and offering more than 150,000 “topically based” pages.
A breakdown:
+ 30,000 US cities and towns, 5,500
public company and industry verticals, 48,000 celebrities and
musicians, 500 sports teams and personalities and many more.
+ An RSS feed is available for each one of these “topically based” pages.
+ Improved relevancy using Topix.net’s own NewsRank algorithm. Prominence (of the event), timeliness (of the story), and magnitude (prominence of the story in its topic area and overall) all play into relevancy. An article’s NewsRank score is visible next to the snippet.
+ New layout and color scheme (easy to use, easy on the eyes)
+ Keyword based email alerts are now available. Results are delivered either daily or weekly (It would be great if an “when published” option was also available).
+ On the right side of the Topix.net home page you’ll now see a “Live Feed” box. This is an “up to the second” list of what Topix is crawling and adding to the database.
+ If you visit a topical or local Topix.net page and then return to the home page, the topical/local pages you’ve visited will “flyout” as you move up and down the top-level category list (below the search box).
+ Topix.net local pages (a page for each Zip Code in the U.S.) now contain direct links to more local info (aerial images, tv listings, movie times, etc.)
+ Don’t forget, the entire Topix.net database remains completely searchable (a couple of pieces of search syntax are available).
Topix.net has become one of my primary tools to browse and search news. Kudos to Rich Skrenta and his team on improving their product.br>See Also: Topix.net launched with its first version in March 2003. Here’s an interview we did with Topix.net CEO Rich Skrenta.