Become.com, a new search engine focusing on shopping-related information, launched in beta form yesterday. The Mountain View, CA, company uses proprietary technology that indexes 2.2 billion Web pages of product reviews, buying guides and articles, and provides a more “targeted” search for shoppers. Become.com’s Affinity Index Ranking technology produces more relevant results than other search engines, the company said, because it delivers comparison information beyond price, including reviews, buying advice and articles.
The targeted information is important, according to Become.com, because a recent Jupiter Research study showed that users of general search engines were dissatisfied with too many results and irrelevant searches.