Scour.com: A Google Replacement?

I've been checking out a new search engine called Scour. Competing with Google is going to be a hard battle, but Scour has a few things going for it that I think can make it a little better than Google.

First off, they are social. I can go up there, check out a website and then comment on it in the Scour system. As I comment or vote for sites they move up or down the list, depending on the vote. This allows spam to be moved down the list and good sites to move up the list. Unlike other social media sites, the listed sites are not just limited to those that sign up. Like Google, every site is listed in the engine.

Since there are not yet very many votes or comments in the Scour system, they need to have something else in the background to help with the searching. They also need this in order to cope with sites that have the same number of votes. If people start using it, it could grow, allowing us to have a say in the search results is a good thing.

Many people do not need encouragement to be involved with social media. It is just fun to do. Scour does give some encouragement though, in the form of points. These points can then be turned in for money. Unless you search a LOT, and add a LOT of votes and comments, this builds up very slowly. In the few days I've been playing with it, including installing their Firefox search bar, I've earned about 200 points. I only need 6300 more to get a $25 prepaid visa card. However, they also give insentives to get me to get you to sign up. If you sign up with one of the links on this page, I get a 25% bonus of any points you earn. Don't worry, you don't pay them to me, they are in addition to what you get.

Another thing that makes Scour nice is that they give you Google, Yahoo! and Live results as well, so you can check all four sources to get the best results for you. Some times one source just does not have the results you want, so another source is useful.

Now, for the flaws in the system:

Spammers can vote up their stuff. Right now, being a new engine, a spammer can come in and vote their sites up. I'm not a spammer, but I voted for my sites. In the long run, this will not be a bad thing, if there are a lot of voters, then a few people voting poorly will not hurt the system. In the short run this will make it hard to get great results. They can easily overcome this by allowing people to vote for the voters. This will allow people to vote others up and down, giving more or less weight to their votes.

Those points. The points are nice, but they can also cheapen the system. Are they really needed? And can you let others know how many points you have? If you can brag about the points you have earned, showing a ranking of the highest earners, then you are going to get some vain people (admit it, most of us are a little vain) who want to see their names in the lists who will be voting in order to get on the list.