Roadmap feedback

Community Discussions
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Hey everyone,

Thanks for your interest in the project and its continued evolution.

We’re looking for thoughts and feedback on the roadmap. It’s a living document and is changing frequently based on priority shifts driven by community feedback, available resources and unanticipated issues and opportunities that arise.

Please take a moment to review https://presearch.io/roadmap and let us know what thoughts or questions you have on the roadmap, specifically Q1 of 2024 as that’s the most immediate period.

Thanks again for your assistance in making Presearch better!

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Thats lot of good news for Q1. The Presearch AI prototype sounds very interesting and ofcorse the listing😀

Q2 crawler and keyword explorer is big. Indexer in q3. Sounds like a great year for the search engine, if it can be achieved.

I hope presearch can finally see a steady grow in searches and reach the masses. But also i wish a bit more crypto related moon boy youtube marketing. I know Tim dont want pump and dump. Maybe he is right, maybe not​:blush::+1:

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All I can say is WOW! If we accomplish even half of this roadmap there won’t be a search engine that can touch our decentralized search power! Fair warning to anyone who has been sitting on the fence waiting to join or take a more active role in Presearch… your delay is my gain. I’m going all in on every role that comes along to the best of my ability and nothing is going to stop this freight train. Great job team. Looking forward to playing my part.

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I think the roadmap is great. Well laid out and lots on it. I also like the fact that things can be ticked off. You are leaders in this. Well done! And hooray for Presearch! Do you have a vision page showing what you want Presearch to look like at the end of the roadmap?

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Thanks for the feedback, we don’t have anything yet on what Presearch will look like at the end of meeting the roadmap objectives, But it is something that can be added as those objectives are met :+1:

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Current strengths: decentralised, superior search experience, AI, privacy. End of roadmap: profitability, even better search, improved AI at low cost, more activity on-chain via Cosmos, own search index, a standout node running system.

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I’m glad the team now comes up with the “flexible” roadmap and request for community feedback. Hopefully, it’s a start for better listening to community feedback

As I like the add-ons to use the platform more broadly (Mobile App, Desktop browser) and “Whitelabel” expanding to other communities (Community Search Engine), let me start with the…

Presearch platform features for the regular user (not for the token holders/stakers)

Unlike the often-heard thought that the Presearch platform can “compete” with Google/Bing/DDG concerning features and benefits, I don’t agree. I think that Google outperforms Presearch on many features.

Below is a list of some Google features that Presearch is yet missing (in no particular order):

  • Clean homepage with “I’m feeling lucky”.
  • Better Language and Location settings.
  • Number of results (at top of page), and time of page load.
  • Advanced Search.
  • People Also Ask (with feedback feature).
  • Related Searches.
  • Personalization settings (opt-in/out for personalized search and/or ad results).
  • Block specific ads (and mark these as impropriate).
  • More and better Filters (not just Maps, but also Books, Flights, Finance, Predictions, MarketCap, Chart, USD, and Price).
  • Better News and Image results.
  • Top Stories.
  • Better Video descriptions with mentioning of duration, number of views, and date of posting.
  • Highlight chosen keywords.
  • About this Search result (source information, personalization, the first day of indexing, Learn more search tips).
  • Incognito.
  • Scrolling results. (Not limited to 10-13 searches per page and annoying forcing you to open next page).

Anyway, I can continue, but I fully disagree with the idea that the team can now stop developing new features as our product is ready to compete with the main search engines… Well, it’s not.

So, create a simple comparison table with all possible features/benefits comparing the main search engines, decide what features/benefits to add and when, and put these on the roadmap.

And as community members can come up with many other wanted features and benefits, set up a system for a “Feature Request & Feedback Board”. Just look at what Binance is doing with its Feedback Board and Public Feedback Roadmap.

This is an excellent system where the community can see the status of their proposals: Under review, Planned, In progress, Released.

Too often good feedback is ignored, or the admins try to answer and/or inform the management team, but there is no follow-up.

So, the current system is very inefficient and this can easily be solved. If the team doesn’t want to set up a new system, then use this Community… but as complained here often… this will only work if someone from the management team responds and informs us about the decision to include it in the to-do list or roadmap (with a short statement about the why).

This way, stakeholders will continue to come up with good feedback and proposals and will (feel to) be taken seriously.

BTW the reason I didn’t post here for several months is the lack of response by the management.

This Community was dead… and that’s for a reason.

The only reason I came back is that the team asked us to give feedback in this Community for the Keyword staking program, Roadmap, and USPs (including slogan).

So, it will be very interesting to see how the management team will respond this time to our feedback.

BTW, I’m not trying to convince you that Presearch should immediately implement all the missing features. But I hope you get the idea that the platform can be improved further.

So, this was about the search experience from the user perspective, what about…

Monetization experience

If we look at the roadmap for Q3 and Q4 2023, there were 5 Monetization roadmap items checked off.

  • Coinzilla 2.0
  • Homepage Takeover Ads.
  • Affiliate Program integration.
  • Presearch (Search) Takeover Ads.
  • Bing Ads integration.

BTW, it’s very easy if you only completed 3 out of 14 roadmap items in Q4 2023 to move them in the future and add some other (minor) achievements as completed in that quarter.

But be honest, were these 5 all successfully being introduced without any further improvements still needed?

In short, Coinzilla 2.0 failed, the Affiliate Program integration with TradeAds (redirects) was a disaster, and the PTA is still a very annoying user experience, especially on smaller devices with annoying overlapping (over platform content and navigation) floating text and CTA-button boxes, and often accidentally and unwanted redirects to advertisers URLs.

And what about all those conflicting issues if users were using VPNs, Ad blockers, or were confronted with extra additional Captchas, or hidden content, and you can’t block annoying ads you don’t want to see anymore?

Let alone, that the full-page ads on the homepage are just too overwhelming for first-time visitors (you know you can only make your first impression once)… screaming “We want your money” and “We have sold our identity to advertisers”.

You can call these “Art Ads”, but the average user has another opinion… however, maybe there is hope as in the last AMA there was this text… “revised homepage that is more descriptive”.

For Bing Ads, I’m not sure what the current status is… I don’t see them anymore (only the first week), maybe it has to do with the country I’m living in (EU) and are Bing Ads only be allowed in the USA (and/or some other Tier1 English spoken countries).

Anyway, the monetization experience for the regular user was very poor in the last few months, resulting in many users leaving the platform.

So, I can’t classify this as being “completed”, and I can only hope that the team will spend more time to improve the monetization experience as we are still not growing in platform usages… but still chasing away users due to these bad monetization experiences.

I have switched back to Google for most of my searches… and I’m not the only one.

Concerning the (consumptive) keyword staking program, I gave my opinion in this Proposal answer in this Community…

(Keyword staking and consumptive model - #4 by Ben)

Personalization vs Privacy for Ads (and search results)

As Presearch respects “Privacy”, it doesn’t save your search results, doesn’t allow third-party cookies, and doesn’t save personal info or interests.

So, the platform can’t show targeted ads to its users (targeting based on known personal info and interests).

Earlier in this Community, I explained why Presearch shouldn’t be that stringent and should introduce "privacy levels”. This way it will still respect privacy but for those users who want to share more personal info and interests, we can give advertisers better targeting options who are willing to pay higher CPV or CPC.

The first step to more “personalization” has been implemented by targeting users based on their (known) location (IP address). I hope the team will include more “personalization” features for ads.

But also (in the future) personalization features for the search results. You know, everyone is biased to some extent. You have your preferences for gender, age, interests, sports teams, politics, religion, and war (country) support.

So, Google uses your preference to show you more “tailor-made” search results, without knowing anything about you, Presearch can only show “average” results… which can be annoying if it’s not what you are looking for as you are biased to some degree.

Hence, the “USP claim” that Presearch is giving better search results which was based on the additional “Community Packages” information is far behind the truth.

Most users will find the Google results better, not only because of all the additional features Presearch is missing but also because of the personalized results (which can be opt in/out for).

OK, so far my first comments. Depending on the replies, I will give my opinion later about the Tokenomics, Marketing, USPs (and slogan), and what else I have to say.

As it’s a flexible roadmap, let’s not discuss too many subjects at once.

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Thanks for the extensive feedback, Ben. Appreciate you taking the time, now and in the past.

Sorry for the lack of response earlier - there was a lot going on at the time and I, personally, was overwhelmed.

Thank you to everyone else who has commented as well. I’ll make sure that these posts get seen by the team and considered.

Will get back to you with a more detailed reply and hope to see additional comments from other community members as well.

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Ben’s community comments I 100% agree.

Presearch goes nowhere without a strong loyal community behind it.

I hope the team realizes that they ostracized, annoyed, and pushed the community away instead of excited us and grew the community.

You need the community to be excited and happy with the user experience and direction of the project so that they stick with it and share it with the world. Right now no one is sharing it you may get some new people coming in but you are losing a lot more that are fed up.

It’s a shame because Presearch has so much potential. Also thoroughly agree with a user voted add functionality or fix tracker/roadmap adds. Many easy 1% improvements or requested changes as wins each week make an huge difference to users and are far better than the alternative we have experienced thus far.

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I don’t know whether or not this is the right place to discuss Presearch’s Mission, Vision, and USPs, but I strongly advise you all to read this blog post below. I copied it and placed it here below. Below, this must-read article, I will give my comments and arguments on what Presearch is missing if we look at the underlying Web3 ideology.

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How Will Web3 Impact the Future of Search Engines?

Linda Rosencrance Technology journalist, Last updated: 3 August, 2023

Source: https://www.techopedia.com/how-will-web3-impact-search-engines

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Web3 search engines, powered by blockchain and AI, will prioritize privacy and decentralization. Users control their data, leading to personalized and transparent search results. The future of search lies in a more open, unbiased, and user-centric Internet. Web3 search engines like Presearch, YaCy, and Xayn are already advancing this vision.

Search engines have evolved significantly since the beginning of the Internet, from those that used simple algorithms to index and retrieve web pages (Web1) to more personalized search engines that included social signals in their algorithms (Web2).

Web3 search engines are still evolving, and they’re mainly focused on privacy, decentralization, and user control. Web3 search engines are driven by a vision of a more unbiased and open Internet and giving users more control of their digital identities and their data. As such, search engines will likely become more personalized and decentralized.

Blockchain technology and artificial intelligence (AI) are to play major roles in Web3 search engines, and decentralization will enable these search engines to deliver more trustworthy and accurate results as well as alleviate concerns about data privacy.

How Web3 Will Impact Search Engines

The next iteration of the World Wide Web, Web3 is a decentralized web that allows companies to create decentralized apps (dApps) and services. Web3 technologies are particularly well-known because they can use a variety of realities, and digital assets, such as NFTs and cryptocurrencies.

And in the future, search engine optimization (SEO) will include blockchain, the metaverse, and virtual reality to enhance the interaction between humans and machines.

Advent of Decentralized Search Engines

One of the main ways Web3 impacts search engines is through the emergence of decentralized search engines that operate via a distributed network of nodes (servers), the foundation of which is blockchain technology. Web3 search engines don’t rely on central servers to index and store data; rather, the search engines’ indexes are distributed across these decentralized networks of peer-to-peer nodes.

As such, these search engines offer more security, transparency, and privacy than traditional search engines, and they’re also more resistant to censorship.

Web3 Works Well With AI

One of the most important factors shaping the future of the internet is artificial intelligence. Natural language processing (NLP) and similar technologies are making human-to-machine communication much easier. This makes intuitive search methods, such as visual search and voice commands, possible.

Additionally, since AI algorithms learn from the behaviors of users, they can provide personalized product recommendations. Also, integrating AI with blockchain solutions offers an improved Internet that safeguards user privacy without sacrificing the advanced search methods AI technologies provide.

More Personalized Search Results

Another way Web3 impacts search engines is by offering more personalized search results. Since users control their own data, they can share that data with search engines the way they want rather than have companies, such as Facebook and Google, collect it.

This could result in a more refined approach to search, with results personalized to each user’s preferences, interests, and search histories. It could lead to more emphasis on privacy as users decide what data to keep private and what data to share with search engines.

Blockchain-Based Advertising

Web3 could also affect search engines in terms of advertising. Decentralized networks, such as blockchain, make it possible to create a fairer and more transparent advertising environment. This could result in a move away from targeted advertising that tracks the online behaviors of users and collects their data.

Instead, advertising could be based on blockchain, where users who engage with ads in a fair and transparent are rewarded, resulting in an enhanced user experience and providing advertisers with an audience that is more receptive and engaged.

Increased Focus on Quality Content

Web3 could also result in a greater emphasis on quality content. With personalized search and decentralized networks, there will be more focus on creating engaging, relevant, and useful content. This could result in a move away from sensationalism and clickbait and toward content that is truly valuable and informative.

Web3 and Augmented Reality Enable Geo Search in Metaverse Apps

Web3 and the metaverse are related and immersive technologies, such as augmented reality, have key roles in the development of each. These immersive technologies are growing quickly and changing how users search visually. In addition, augmented reality is also especially suited for geo-based searches because it works based on users’ current locations.

Companies are currently using geo-based search to target prospective customers in real time. Using augmented reality in conjunction with blockchain technology will also enable intuitive and immersive searching based on location in future metaverse apps.

Do Web3 Search Engines Already Exist?

Yes, there are a number of Web3 search engines that already exist.

Presearch: Using blockchain technology, this decentralized search engine provides users more control over the results of their searches. Presearch operates on node servers run by community members and serves up better results while protecting users’ privacy. Users receive crypto tokens for searching and contributing to the community.

YaCy: An open-source search engine based on a peer-to-peer network that lets users search the Internet without having to rely on a central server. Rather, YaCy indexes and searches content using a distributed network of nodes, guaranteeing security and privacy.

Xayn: An AI-powered search engine, Xayn uses a decentralized network to give users more personalized search results. It uses machine learning algorithms to understand the preferences of users and customize the results of their searches while still safeguarding their privacy.

The Bottom Line

Web3 can significantly impact search engines as it creates a decentralized web that allows users to have more control over how their data is used.

Although it’s not clear precisely how search engines will adapt to this new model, there will be a shift toward security, privacy, semantic search, and user-generated content.

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Well, although Linda mentions Presearch… her conclusion that Presearch users have more control over their searches is unfortunately not yet the case.

Besides all these Web3 points, the focus should be on this aspect… give users (back) their control over their searches… and that’s about personalization (for both search results and advertising results).

At the moment, the privacy focus by not saving any search history data, and thinking that we can give users “general” search results and annoying general irrelevant ads… is not what people are looking for in a Web3 search engine.

So, as the now cleaned stats clearly show that the majority (about 60%) of searches are done by registered/logged-in users… it’s time to focus on personalization.

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Agree personalized results and ads would be better than the same mix of meta search for all. However, general search should also never become an eco-chamber that avoids reality.

This would require an index and storage. But would open the opportunities for “Presearch Communities” (which I have spoken about extensively) to curate better tailored results for those audiences. The largest audiences or most viewed results from communities might then be added to the general Presearch index to help better differentiate from standard meta-search results making presearch results even better for general users.

As far as growing Presearch, Communities has the potential to add tens of thousands of users overnight with each major influencer onboarded to a Presearch Community allowing the influencer their own curated search engine for their audience. The more communities the better overall usage, wider and diverse advertising audience, and better general search results for Presearchers not affiliated with communities.
These communities could have better aligned ads and maybe even share ad revenue between presearch and community owners.

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Yes, I agree about this huge potential for Communities.

This is how you can think about “personalization” for Communities…

If you have a group/community with like-minded people, you can use “personalization” for the whole group if you know what they like, prefer, and want.

And yes, it’s easier to give one group “admin” the “power” to personalize for the whole group.

But for "individual” users on the Presearch platform, personalization features are a “must” to compete with other search engines.

And we don’t have to wait until we have our storage and Web Index.

Let me split personalization into 2 parts… the search experience and the advertising experience, and start with the last.

Personalized advertising experience

At the moment, there is no personalization at all. Everyone will see the same ads with some exceptions:

  • The Tile buttons are based on your personal cookies inside your browser (after visiting supported Site Suggestion sites yourself earlier), and on your location.
  • The Bing Ads and PTA ads are location (IP address) dependent.
  • In the future, for keyword ads… location targeting will be added.

Also, you can’t block or hide ads (if you find these irrelevant, annoying, or intrusive) with these exceptions:

  • On mobiles you can click away (click the “X”, close, at the right corner) the annoying floating overlapping CTA button (and related text), you know at the bottom of your screen.
  • You can hide all PTA ads by blocking background images in your settings.
  • You can “flag” a keyword ad for “abuse” and maybe this ad will be removed (but you have to be registered as Presearch user).
  • You can turn off “Autocomplete”.
  • If you use ad blocker apps, you won’t see all ads (but often get annoying warnings and other errors).

BTW for PTA ads: in the past, you had 2 setting options, one for background ads, and one for background images, but for some reason, the team decided to combine these 2 into one setting… deleting the option for users to choose for their favorite background images. In my opinion, a strange and unwanted change as it restricts user preferences, and should be turned back to 2 settings.

So, you can’t block these ads: Tile buttons, Keyword ads, Home Page Takeover, Search Page Takeover (on desktops), Product Carrousel, Affiliate Ads, Bing Ads, and Display ads. And you can’t flag ads besides complaining to support or flag for the specific keyword ad.

As most users are not aware that they can block the PTA by “disabling” background images and can turn off Autocomplete, and think that they have no control over them other than the mobile “X” option, you can conclude that Presearch is not taking its users seriously and ram (annoying) ads down everyone’s throat.

The solution is to give users more “ad personalization” settings and options to block (or flag) ads, which won’t be shown thereafter.

But that’s just to “control” current visible ads.

Real personalization goes way deeper and allows users to control what kind of ads they want to see by giving permission and sharing interests.

For example, you can ask users to checkmark their interests, i.e. for which category they do want to see ads… and reward them with higher PRE (search) rewards. This way everyone wins, the user who gets interesting ads (and more PRE rewards), the advertiser who can target better, and Presearch as it can charge higher CPM or CPC.

But there are so many options to add more personalization features, this should be a subject in itself… but it all starts with whether or not the team is open for more ad personalization.

Search Experience personalization

At the moment, users have no control over the search results and search experience, except for several basic exceptions:

  • What to show: Local Search, Safe Search, Autocomplete, AI.
  • Where to show: New Tab.
  • Appearance settings: Dark/Light Mode, Text Size, Background (and categories).

And just one specific unique feature:

Users can select their favorite (meta) Search Sites (you know the icons) and choose whether these should be always visible and in color or not.

So, that’s it for search personalization…

And as described earlier… there are still many other (personalization) features that Presearch is missing in comparison to the main search engines which give their users a better search experience.

For me, it all comes down to giving users as many features to…

CREATE YOUR OWN (PRIVATE) SEARCH EXPERIENCE

So, not general “unbiased” search results for everyone the same, but “biased” search results based on users’ preferences.

Preferences about:

  • Portal settings, your own Presearch home page to start any search with “search feeds” for news, trending topics, all your own Meta Search settings, etc.

  • Data sources you want to in- or exclude (this can be paid or unpaid sources)

  • AI setting (which source to use).

  • Filters to exclude certain search results (you know with Google Advanced Search, you can exclude words from the search results by putting the “-“ before the words you don’t want to include… but you have to set these specifically for each search) by default for any search. Think about a Filter just as for Adult content and Safe Search content, but now for “content” you don’t want to see (you don’t like Trump/Biden exclude it…)

Presearch should and can be the “one-stop” place for all your searches, no matter what type of search or possible sources.

Just by “integrating” all possible (and relevant) search sources into your own “Portal”.

All these settings are “irrelevant” to your prior search behavior… these relate to what you want to include in the search results and not.

Let alone what will be possible if the platform will “use” historical search behavior to optimize new search results…

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I can’t find “open source Presearch node” in the roadmap.

Is that still a goal? Will Presearch be close sourced?

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Presearch is not open source, it is a future goal, we only have a current roadmap what is this

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Could that be added to the “Future” section of the roadmap?

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Sure, The roadmap may have modifications, So something like that could be added the moment we are around

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I don’t see anything on the roadmap future specific to the Presearch AI? It’s definitely super cool and I’d love to see more features that centre this amazing thing. In the near future it would be great for Presearch AI to integrate ideas/data from search results in its text answers, like Bing bot does. In the far future it would be cool to have a mobile and desktop app optimized to interact with Presearch AI with voice and integrating with things like calendar, email, etcetera. Basically just plug Presearch AI directly into my skull please.

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Presearch It will have pregpt Ai which is in beta tester, then we hope it will be available to all users, we will have more expanded information in the coming days, Also the nodes will have their own decentralized Ai option to the search engine since Presearch currently uses chatgpt3, In fact in the roadmap you can see how Pregpt chatbot, Likewise, the roadmap is updated regularly.