Wikia Search opens up to broad participation

public to control the editorial process of the search," Wales said.

For now, Wikia Search will offer a single search box for all file and document types on its index, but later plans to allow people to search specifically for photos, videos, news articles and so on. Likewise, most of the index currently consists of English-language sites but Wales' goal is for the engine to be multilingual eventually.

Search Wikia and Wikipedia operate under two separate organizations that were both founded by Wales: Wikia Inc. is a commercial, for-profit company while The Wikimedia Foundation that oversees Wikipedia is a nonprofit entity. Wikia Inc. and Wikimedia operate independently of each other. Wikia Search is one of several projects and services at Wikia Inc.