Endeca Powered Interhome Goes Live

November 22, 2010

I visited Interhome’s newly relaunched website this afternoon at the urging of “Interhome.com: Easily find holiday homes (Guided Navigation)”. After a few minutes on the site it is no surprise that Endeca had a mouse click in this venture; Interhome.com is in fact sporting Endeca’s Guided Navigation search experience.

Drawing from a URL database and providing a faceted search, it takes mere minutes for any user to find a posh chalet in the perfect Swiss location and ensure it offers a dishwasher. Search is enabled through several different criteria including region, price, availability etc. One notable feature is that each offered home gains its own customized URL based on the user’s search terms. The real magic happens behind the scenes. The article said:

The URL of each page is rewritten based on user input and based on importance of the given refinement. i.e. someone may start browsing by not so search engine relevant terms such as say ‘dishwasher’. The URL will reflect that and show ‘dishwasher’ as variable. But if the next refinement is say ‘Switzerland’, a term that is way more relevant for Interhome’s search engine optimization efforts, the URL will be adapted accordingly and ‘Switzerland’ will be placed before ‘dishwasher’ in the result page’s URL.

I find the functionality to be nice, but not explicitly novel. Integrating the map aspect into the search does allow a break from having to cross-reference websites in the pursuit of the best getaway home locale, but it wasn’t enough to overcome some personal aversions. I actively avoid Facebook, and with the same hackneyed color scheme and “profile” layout, Interhome.com is the Facebook of vacation houses. But because I do love a good travel website and I recognize the profile format is useful in this application, my hope for Interhome is the search speed, precision, versatility and general lack of contest keeps others interested.

Sarah Rogers, November 22, 2010

Freebie

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Business strategy, ECommerce, News, Text processing

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.