How TabDesk Works

Basic Things

TabDesk is a mixture of an 'old school' internet directory, nifty search based algorithms and 'new school' user generated content.

For the user, TabDesk works like any other search engine. Type in a search term and get a set of (hopefully relevant) results.

However, TabDesk is not a standard search engine. It works in a different way and will produce great results for some types of searches and poor ones for others.

Beta. Beta. Beta.

Launching TabDesk in Beta form is not just our way of trying to get away with all the bugs. It's also because TabDesk is new and being a user generated project and a search engine, it will take time to get started. If you don't like the results yet, please check back again soon or even better, become an Editor.

Tabs

The key to the TabDesk system is the Tab, which is collection of links to usually websites, sometimes videos and occasionally single web pages. Each Tab has has a defined topic, say 'online travel agents', and a defined geographic relevance, say 'Global' or 'United Kingdom'. Geographic specific Tabs will usually have a flag next to them on the search results whereas Global Tabs will not.

All our links are hand submitted by our site users and are selected and edited by our Editors, who aim to put together the most relevant, useful and informative links for that particular Tab.

Editors

We edit a few Tabs directly ourselves but the rest are edited by people like you ! In fact, if you are interested in a particular topic, apply to be an Editor now. Editors select which links are included in each Tab by voting on them. It's fair, democratic and produces balanced results.

Link Descriptions

All links are given a brief description to help improve the search result interface. Rolling your mouse over a link displays the description in a bar at the top of the page. The aim is to give the user a quick, independent, overview of the site, page, video or other content behind the link. We are currently developing additional features such as reviews, ratings and comments. (Note that while we are in Beta, some browsers may not show the description or may show it directly next to the link - sorry !)

Search System

Although the links are submitted by users and edited by our Editors, the search mechanism is automated like any other search engine. The main difference is that TabDesk considers searches based within the context of the entirety of a Tab, not just a single site or page. We also do lots of clever analysis on the frequency and relationships of words and phrases contained within sites throughout Tabs and the entire directory to help improve results.

Site Layout

One of the greatest challenges of any search engine is search term context. An understanding of what the search was really about. You typed 'King Charles', but do you mean royalty or dogs ? TabDesk, like any other search engine cannot know for sure, but we try to work around this by enabling the page to contain as many links as possible. On a standard engine, you may get ten or so results, many of which won't relate to what you wanted. On TabDesk, because of the design, you will still get many links that you didn't want, but a whole lot more of what you did.

Even better, a simple click on any of the Tab titles will create a page of new Tabs centered around the selected Tab so you are only ever one click away from a page of links about the subject you really wanted.

Cross Tabs

Tabs are often linked to other Tabs which may not appear in the normal search results - but perhaps you might be interested in. For example, a search on 'Property Finders' will produce Tabs based around estate agents and property websites. However, these Tabs can be cross linked with other Tabs to improve the search result experience, such as DIY, self storage or mortgages.