Ask.com, Hakia target Google with search engine updates

now provides a link to a feature called "galleries," which organizes search results into relevant categories. For example, a search on "Madonna" will categorize results in areas like images, headlines, blogs, fan sites, lyrics and controversies.

Frederic Lardinois, a blogger at Read Write Web, noted that Hakia uses a very strict definition for what makes a site credible.

"To be included in the index, a site should have gone through a peer review process, not have any commercial bias, and the information should be current," he added. "The fact that Hakia insists on only adding peer reviewed sites should greatly enhances the signal-to-noise ratio of the search results."

Lardinois went on to note that Hakia is very adept at structuring its regular search results by categories.

"Whenever we tried to ask more general questions ('What is a blog?'), however, Hakia's results were often underwhelming and uneven," he added. "Sometimes we got results that were spot-on, while at other times, the results barely had anything to do with our query."

Moreover, Erick Schonfeld, a blogger at TechCrunch, questioned whether this approach to highlighting credibility might be vulnerable to spammers.

"While this white-list approach could improve the quality of results, it also seems way too easy to game," he added. "Any spammer can try to get their site on the truthful and authoritative list. And they will."