SLQuery.com

Hello everyone -

I started a new site, www.slquery.com, that I hope will become helpful to all. It started as a small project for myself to help catalogue all the interesting things I was finding, but I quickly realized it could become quite useful to others as well so I turned it into a full membership driven site.

It is a resident driven search engine for Second Life. Unlike the normal search features this site indexes data based on the title, the description, the category, the author, and more. It also allows searching with wildcard characters and I'm planning on implementing fuzzy searches that approximate words. You can also post images for all items you enter into the site.

In addition, the free search HUD allows you to search the site as well as post new items to the site from within SL.

Please note: the site is brand new and in a beta state, so the database is a little bare on entries right now, but I hope that will change very soon as we start to add new entries. I hope to host a contest or two to assist with generating interest as well, so look for those soon.

A few facts about the site that I hope explain it a little better:

What can I use SLQuery.com for? - this is a multi-purpose site that you can use to promote your products, store locations, events, etc. and to search for other items that members such as yourself have posted. It works similar to the Google search engine but, in addition, allows you to maintain your own search entries. Think of SLQuery.com as an extended search engine for SecondLife® in the same way that a search engine on the web extends your ability to search and find information around the Internet.

Search entries can be a product, a location, a service, or any of a number of other item types to help others both find your products as well as find additional information about your products and services.

How can I register? - Registration occurs in-world via one of my SLQ kiosks. You can also obtain the free search HUD from any of the kiosks. You can find an SLQ kiosk here (more locations are coming online soon):

1. Tretiak Media Store
   
2. Temple of Anubis (Twilight Emporium)
   

How is this different from the search built-in to SecondLife®? - the SLQuery.com search engine uses every part of the title and description to search more accurately for the products, services, events, or locations you are looking for. In addition, it allows you to search specifically against a categorized type of search entry such as an animation or a script, search for items posted by a specific resident, and search using simple wild card characters to make fuzzy matches to the terms you are searching for. In addition, members who post entries can provide image enhancements to their postings to better explain their product or service. Just like SecondLife® itself, the site relies on the resident community to build up the database of items to search against.

Thank you for your interest and I hope that you find it useful and informative as the site gains momentum.

~ Damek Tretiak