Assisted search engine

elevature

A while back there was a search engine where you would essentially have a helper who would do the search for you. You could ask them a question, and they would perform a google search or whatever they did and give you suggestions in the form of links. I think they were paid a very small amount for their work. I remember some people on a forum, might have been this one, asking stupid questions about how to get blood out of the carpet and other things that were likely to get them reported to the police and we all had a big laugh.

But I can't remember what the site was. Does anyone know what it is and if it's still active?

Dark Moon

ChaCha.com

elevature

Awesome, thanks. Mods can feel free to lock this.

Edit: that looks like it's only for text messaging, actually. Did they do browser-based searches at one point? Or am I thinking of a different service? The name sounds very familiar.

Dark Moon

I think you need an account now, but on the "New Account Setup" page it mentions "Speaking with our guides on the web and on your phone," so I'm fairly certain it's web-based as well.

elevature

I signed up, and while you can ask a question and wait for a response, it's not the live chat that they did before. But Wikipedia answered my question:

ChaCha had originally been founded with the intention to offer human-guided search from within a web browser and for the search engine to "learn" from the results provided by their guides. The system offered a chat on the left side of the page where users could chat with the guides and conclude their search. The center of the page contained the results that a guide could add or remove (later users could also add or remove these results). The right side of the page contained ads that were relevant to the search.

Desktop search was phased out in April 2008 in favor of mobile products.

So it's definitely the one I was thinking of, they've just changed since I last used it.

And this is solved for real this time. Thanks!