Ask YC: What do you think of my new search engine?

Ack. Good results but not yet so impressive that it's a Google killer. I gave it a quick spin and it gave better results than most prospective giant killers, but still not notably better than the giant itself.

Unlike most, I'd be prepared to give it another go at some future date though - so this definitely has some potential. I hope the developer keeps on working on this.

Shouldnt it be Duck Duck Goose?

I guess they're showing now, or I was doing something wrong before (or, everyone was, given the number of upmods...)

I'm guessing you are using wikipedia to vet the query and determine the type of things to display, and then have some mappings from that into other data sets.

I'm sure there's more to it than that, but very clever.

The fact that everyone is commenting on the design is a good sign, that stuff is easy to change.

Your engine actually seems superior to Google in some ways, which is fantastic. I've always wondered if a single person could do something technologically novel in search; you seem to have done so. I wouldn't be surprised if your engine opens the doors to real, widespread innovation in search.

Your UI isn't great, though. Some unordered points:

• Your name is bad.

• Your text is too big.

• The whole thing feels too unprofessional.

• You need to show more search results by default. Four results feels claustrophobic. People won't get overwhelmed, they've been living with long results lists for ten years.

• You need to make the traditional ordered list of results distinct from the other pieces of information that your search engine thinks are relevant. Right now it can be hard to distinguish results from extras, and I think that will be an impediment to getting users (if getting users is in fact your goal). In particular, don't put the topic-filtering questions above the results — put them to the side.

• Don't highlight the result that I'm mousing over.

• Get rid of the little arrows next to links.

Actually, I'd suggest going to Google, writing down every difference between their UI and yours, and asking yourself why you did it differently. I don't think the Google UI is necessarily the ultimate way to present search results, but I don't think you've added much, either, and theirs is pretty damn good.

Technology: right now your search engine doesn't seem to understand that recent events are more important, typically, than past ones; a search for "explanation of the economic crisis" didn't produce anything in the top four results (although the fifth one, ironically, was relevant). Google gave me what I was looking for (although it's notable that if I hadn't been looking for stuff about the current crisis, your engine would have been better).