Some people have come to believe that Google is the be-all and end-all of search engines. Yes, many of us turn to the big G for most of our web search needs, but we still turn to other sites for other purposes. We search Amazon for books, LastFM for music, and Wikipedia for answers, for instance.
Rather than opening multiple web browser windows and going to each of these sites individually, it is much more convenient to go to just one place and get all the search results aggregated for you. Favitt addresses this precise concept, making your online life just a little bit easier.
As we go through this review, we’ll take a look at what Favitt has to offer and whether it should become your search engine of choice.
Search Everything with Favitt
When you go to the main Favitt homepage, you’ll be presented with a rather familiar interface. It almost looks like Google, except the background is black and the tabs above the search bar offer different options.
The main idea, as you can probably fathom, is that you can enter your search term once and be presented with the search results from all these different sources. Even though only five search engines are shown as tabs above the search bar, there are more available when you hit the “more” button to the left.
It should be noted, however, that not all the search engine results are shown on a single page. Instead, you toggle between the results by clicking on the appropriate links.
Monetizing the Search Engine Results Page
Favitt has to make money somehow, since it is a free service. That’s why there are sponsored links and other advertising on the search engine results page.
This is the page that I got when I searched for “michael kwan” on Bing using Favitt. There is a Google AdSense banner at the top, as well as one at the bottom of the page. The search results themselves could be monetized as well.
In addition to the Bing results, I was also shown truncated search results for YouTube, Twitter, and Google News along the right sidebar. Going further, I could click on any of the search option links on the left to access more results from Digg, Yelp, Answers, and so on.
Customize Your Links Too
If you want to use Favitt as your main homepage, you can also sign up for a free account and start the customization process. Beyond the search engines, you can also add your own bookmarks and “favorite sites.”
The default links include Facebook, Gmail, and Twitter, but you could just as easily add John Chow dot Com and Beyond the Rhetoric to your list of frequently visited links.
Ditch the Black for Something More
Whether or not you choose to sign up for a free Favitt account, you can customize the background image to suit your personal preferences. To try this out, I created favitt.com/michaelkwan and swapped the background for an image I created during my trip to Banff.
That certainly adds some personality to the page. Further still, you can adjust the position of the search bar to your liking too. The default is to have it in the center, but you can move it to any of the four corners instead. In this instance, I placed the search bar in the top-right.
Possible Branding Problems for Favitt
On more than one occasion as I prepared and wrote this review, I misspelled Favitt as Favvit. This is probably going to be a common instance until the search engine becomes a better known brand in its own right. Maybe it’s just me.
As it stands, the functionality of Favitt is quite good, giving you access to multiple search engines from one convenient location. The search results page feels a little clunky with so many “widgets” in different positions, but it is still easy to find what you need. It is free to use, so there’s no harm in giving Favitt a try.
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{ 23 comments }
I think it’s funny that Favitt uses Google ads as their monetization strategy.
Think they will launch a self-serve platform?
I don’t see any problem with that!
Cool, it’s like several engines in one..
It’s funny how a misspelling can totally change your marketing efforts. Hopefully they’ll figure out a way to make it more impressionable amongst their audience…
Would love to give a try tonight because its weekends again
That’s a pretty sweet search engine, definitely start using this for some of my searches. I just might have to take advantage of people’s misspellings for Favvit.
I did a search for the term “internet millionaires” and found my site ranked 12 in Google, but nowhere to be seen in Bing. Very different results from the different engines. I wonder if Favitt will incorporate any of the other big names like yahoo… First I’ve heard of Favitt.
Are tehy better than Google?
if not then why should anyone give them a go?
Always nice to see new meta search engines. Looking forward to checking them out!
They should register both favvitt and favvit and do a 301 redirect.
New search engines? Very interesting.
eh.. still like google more!
Never heard of it, but I’ll take it for a spin. Thanks for the info.
It’s hard to get people to change their habits. So many are addicted to searching with Google, me included. But if a company like this can add value to the searches with a clean interface and extra related items that may be of interest, including Youtube related videos, they may have a chance of catching on.
nice. i like favitt.
Anything that makes my life easier is worth a try at least. Time will tell if Favitt gets adopted on a broad scale, or if they simply get relegated to also-rans…..it is tough out there in cyberspace.
great looks…nice
The concept is pretty interesting, just have to see if it gets accepted by the internet and business community. We’ve all seen great ideas get left in the dust before. TIme will tell
I used to tinker with scripts that did this sort of thing back in the day..but I see these guys have actually come up with a mash-up search engine with class
Re: Favitt vs Favvit vs Favit vs………
You’re not the only one John.
Why do companies continue to do this to themselves…..naming themselves with names that don’t pass the radio test, that nobody can spell. They don’t even own favit.com, in order to do a redirect.
I’m going to change my homepage from Google to Favitt and try it out. It seems like a really neat concept.
Nice look and feel, but it just seems like the same concept in many ways.. Maybe a good way to make extra money for the owners though..
This site is similar to http://www.iceteh.com
It’s also a helpful time-saver for SEO queries!
Bryan