Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has decided to close down the Wikia Search project citing money issues and low traffic. The free open source search engine aimed to take on the likes of Google and Yahoo with a system that allowed users to rate, edit and enhance the results themselves.
The Wikia Search page has now begun wrapping up and redirecting users to other Wikia.com projects.
Jimmy Wales explained the decision on his personal blog: “Wikia Search, has not been enjoying the kind of success that we had hoped. In a different economy, we would continue to fund Wikia Search indefinitely. It’s something I care about deeply. I will return to again and again in my career to search, either as an investor, a contributor, a donor, or a cheerleader.”
Although the man who invented Wikipedia might have had lofty ambitions about beating Google at its own game, it seems very likely that Google’s own SearchWiki put serious dampeners on rival Wikia Search. WikiSearch has put some of the control in the hands of users by enabling re-ranking, comments and modifications stored by your personal Google Account.
