SLI Systems Launches Learning Search for Publishers

Hosted Site Search for Publishers and Online Media Sites Improves User Experience and Increases Page Views and Targeted Advertising Opportunities

CUPERTINO, CA – August 2, 2010 – To help meet the demands of site visitors and to improve advertising revenue opportunities for online publishers, SLI Systems is launching Learning Search for Publishers, a customizable, hosted site search solution for digital media sites. With Learning Search for Publishers, online publishers can improve the “findability” of their content; provide a more engaging, interactive site search experience; and drive more traffic to their site.

Dilbert.com, the website for Scott Adams’ collection of satirical comic strips about life in the workplace, is using Learning Search for Publishers to help its fans find, save, and license strips. Before implementing Learning Search for Publishers, the Dilbert.com site only allowed for searches by date range or character, which limited the ability of visitors to find the cartoon strips they wanted, especially since the Dilbert archive contains over 20 years of strips. With Learning Search for Publishers, Dilbert.com visitors can now fine-tune their searches when they are seeking the best strip for a business presentation or a website.

“Today’s online publishers need to drive traffic to premium content or subscriber-only areas of their site to drive revenue, and they need to create more visible and targeted promotions,” said Ed Hoffman, vice president of global business and corporate development for SLI Systems. “Learning Search for Publishers helps content providers take control of the way they merchandise content within search results, and also provides useful site search data that helps advertisers deliver more highly targeted messages.”

Learning Search for Publishers offers the following features and benefits:

• Rules-based content merchandising: allows media publishers to promote content within site search results based on defined options and rules.
• Search results ordering: allows publishers to control the order of site search results to match business objectives.
• Custom landing page creation: allows publishers to create landing pages for specific high-traffic queries, such as information requests or subscriptions.
• Banner placement: allows publishers to place relevant banner ads for specific keyword searches.
• Ad server integration: integrates with ad servers to allow publishers to generate revenue from their content.
• Access to all content types: site visitors can search across blogs, reviews, forums, videos, stores, and social media content.
• State-of-the-art search interface with Auto Complete, refinements, ordering options, search suggestions, fast AJAX-based results pages, and many other features.

Digital media sites often struggle to attract readers to newer content, such as videos and blog posts, and revenue-generating content, such as subscriber-only articles. The vast amount of content available on many publisher sites is challenging for site visitors to sort through and refine, especially for complex material that requires exact keyword searches. Without tools to help narrow down searches and find the desired content, visitors are not likely to remain on the site or make return visits. And without higher page views, online publishers cannot set higher advertising rates.

SLI’s Learning Search for Publishers solves these challenges, providing site search that continually “learns” from visitor behavior by tracking aggregate search queries and click-throughs, using this information to deliver results based on popularity. This creates more relevant search results based on search terms that visitors are actually using – a critical capability for online publishers. Learning Search also offers detailed reporting and analytics that provide insights on search behavior, and can help online publishers improve the searching experience for site visitors.

SLI’s advanced search features, such as Auto Complete and faceted navigation, help guide visitors to the content they need. SLI also gives publishers more control over how they promote content and deliver targeted advertising – for instance, the ability to create custom landing pages, and to sell advertisements tied to popular search keywords. In addition, Site Champion, SLI’s user-generated SEO solution, helps drive traffic to publisher websites by using information from visitors’ search behavior to create high-quality landing pages.

About SLI Systems

SLI Systems is the developer of learning-based site search and navigation technology for corporate Internet sites, content publishers, e-commerce destinations and consumer Internet portals that Searches, Learns and Improves the user experience. SLI Systems' hosted site search and user-generated SEO solutions empower businesses to enhance customer satisfaction while increasing sales, reducing costs and yielding valuable customer information. Unlike traditional search software, SLI Systems’ patented technology continuously “learns” from the behavior of visitors over time to deliver more relevant results. SLI Systems is a privately held company, with offices in Silicon Valley, London, and Christchurch, New Zealand. For more information, visit www.sli-systems.com, or see the company’s blog at http://blog.sli-systems.com/.