I’ve neglected V3GGIE for too long as I have been building other search engines, most visibly Insider Food. However, I’ve started improving V3GGIE with many of the lessons I’ve learned over the past 6 months.
Better Resources
I’ve removed some generic resources, such as foodnetworktv.com from the recipes section. I was not able to restrict the results to their vegetarian section. This was introducing less desirable meat based information. I’ve introduced several new vegetarian recipe blogs, restaurant reviews, and buzz resources.
Find more on Amazon
I’ve also added book results on Amazon.com to help you find even more information. You’ll see a new set of books for every search request.
I think you’ll find V3GGIE a much better search engine than it was yesterday. Enjoy.
We’ve added a new recipe resource to the V3GGIE search engine. Fat Free Vegan Recipes is exactly what it sounds like. This web site is filled with recipes contributed by its users. It’s nice to have more vegan options. Here’s an example of their recipes: Bean Spread with Italian Herbs.
Adding new resources
The websites used as resources on V3GGIE have to pass certain standards.
- They must include original content
- They must have a good depth of information
- They should either stand alone or allow crawling without getting undesired information.
That last part is the most difficult. A web site like Epicurious has great vegetarian recipes. But it also introduces noise into the results. V3GGIE is only looking at the vegetarian section of their site, but it could also pick up results from the non-vegetarian sections. I’d like to search for corn chowder and not receive any clam chowder recipes. This is the goal of this search engine. Fine tuning the resource list is the key.
Buzzillions.com is a site that I’ve considered adding to the V3GGIE resource list. It’s a product site that aggregates reviews and product descriptions. They have a nice section of Vegan products. However, it’s difficult to add them to the resource list and not introduce non-vegetarian/vegan products in the results.
I’ve also received feedback to add more personal sites. Unfortunately, the content is either too shallow or too specialized for general use. Due to technical reasons, I have to keep the resource list below a certain level.
Search results now include up to three related terms for each result. This will make it even easier to find new recipes, news, and ideas.
The Culinary School Guide web site just posted an extensive list of search engines for recipes, nutrition, restaurants, and more: 100 Useful Search Engines for Chefs, Cooks and Food Lovers. They were nice enough to include V3GGIE in their list. Check it out, it’s a great resource.
I’ve been busy working on a new iteration of the V3GGIE.com site. I’m hoping to debut it soon, stay tuned.
I’ve added a new resource to the local search: Eat-Out.net. This is a user-driven restaurant site. You can add your favorite restaurant to their service for everyone to find. This will enhance restaurant searches in France, UK, and the rest of Europe.
Lots of changes to V3GGIE this week.
The most obvious change is the search box. I’ve removed the tabs and made it easier to just search for the information.
Originally, I planned on having different sections for each topic. However, few people were actually using the different pages. You want the results, not necessarily to go to a section specifically for blogs or recipes. Don’t worry, your bookmarks will still work. This also significantly speeds up the page as virtually all of the JavaScript has been removed.
David Lebovitz
I’ve added the recipe section from David Lebovitz‘s web site to the recipe search. David is a world renown chef and cook book author. His specialties are chocolate and desserts. While he’s not a vegetarian chef per se, most of his recipes can be used by vegetarians and some are even vegan.
Welcome new visitors
V3GGIE has been picked up by several web sites and is sending a decent number of curious people. Thank you Alt Search Engines, Stumble Upon, Simple Spark, Animal Concerns, and Killer Startups.
New logo coming soon
Heidi has delivered the new logo prototype. Look for the happy guy on the site very soon.
Alt Search Engines, a blog that highlights cutting edge and niche search engines, recently posted a review of V3GGIE: Good and good for you – nutrition search engines.
Thank you for the constructive advice.
I was having an issue with the pages being inaccessible to screen readers. I found that my use of deferring the ads until after the page loaded was breaking the virtual buffer of screen readers.
If this sounds like a bunch of nonsense, just remember that V3GGIE is now the perfect search engine for your blind vegetarian friends.
It’s only been a week since I launched V3GGIE and the bug fixes and improvements are coming along.
Bug fixes:
- The search form had bad code for the search button. I don’t know what I was thinking when I put that together. It is now a proper search button and you can easily search to your heart’s delight.
- The search results have been rebuilt with headers and lists to give better accessibility to screen readers.
- The text ads are gone from the home page to speed up the page download.
- The Recipes home page is now working, there was a silly typo in the PHP.
Incoming links
I’ve written two blog posts so far about V3GGIE. Find out more about this project: Create your own search engine with Yahoo! BOSS and V3GGIE.com – A vegetarian search engine.
New Logo?
I’ve been playing around with new logo designs. Heidi Barack of GalaxyGloo is working on making the site a bit more friendly. Here’s a rough draft of an image I put together. Frankly, it looks pretty scary. I’m looking forward to seeing what Heidi can do with her vegetable buddies.
Posted in bug fixes and updates
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This blog is primarily to track updates and changes to the search engine, accept feedback for future enhancements, and to highlight popular searches as time goes by.
It may seem a bit dry, as blogging goes. For more interesting vegetarian blog reading, try Paris Vegetarian, where I write restaurant reviews and more.
