What is SiteSig?

SiteSig is an experimental "reverse search engine" to help you find pages that move around on The Internet or within a corporate intranet.

What is a reverse search engine?

A reverse search engine takes a URL and converts it to a tight search, based on content analysis. The search link can serve as a bookmark to re-find the document, if missing.

Why would I need a reverse search engine?

• To find lost documents elsewhere on the Web.
• To find lost documents on an intranet supporting a search engine.
• To find content similar to an existing document.
• To find plagiarized copies of an author's work.
• To find older or obsolete versions of a document.

Do you have an example scenario?

Let's say Phil posts the world's greatest HOWTO document on creating web sites at http://www.cheapo.com/~phil/web, which uses a cheap and bad hosting service. The hosting service goes out of business and the URL no longer works.

Julia discovers the missing site, happens to have a copy, and posts the document again in another location on a better host, e.g. http://www.awesome.com/~julia/web.

Pauline needs the document, and has a bookmark for http://www.cheapo.com/~phil/web. She gets an error visiting the site. She uses Google to seach for the words "web site howto", and gets a flood of links to other things. She wants this particular document, but is stuck... unless she uses SiteSig.

Luckily, Pauline had realized that the document might move around. She had saved a search bookmark by running the SiteSig bookmarklet while viewing the site. When she uses the search bookmark Julia's site, http://www.awesome.com/~julia/web, appears at the top of the search results.

How can SiteSig help find documents that disappear?

SiteSig allows you to save a search bookmark that finds a document, no matter wherever how far it strays from the original site. Generated searches are typically tight enough to place the actual document at or near the top of the search results.

How do I use the SiteSig bookmarklet?

Save the bookmarklet link (top) as a bookmark. Use it while viewing any page to generate reverse search results.

There is no need to copy and paste URLs into reverse search form.

Results appear in a separate tab or window.

How will SiteSig improve in the future?

URLs and searches will be saved in order to allow document recovery without needing to save a search bookmark.