Search engine dives into cleantech

A recently revamped search engine is branching out into cleantech, offering information seekers access to hard-to-find material in the so-called “deep Web,” the company says.

Menlo Park-based DeepDyve—previously called Infovell—announced in November 2008 that it is now offering a free version of its formerly subscription-based search engine. Additionally, the startup says it is expanding its focus from life sciences and patents to cleantech and energy, and will begin indexing material on such topics in late 2008.

About 99 percent of material on the Internet lies beyond the reach of regular search engines, says DeepDyve CEO William Park. Through a query system that allows searchers to use lengthy queries—or to use content itself as a query—Park says users can more accurately hone in on material.

“We’re not trying to out-Google Google,” Park says of Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG), the world's largest search engine. “Search is evolving and how people are doing queries is evolving.”

Targeting information-savvy users, DeepDyve claims to dig into unstructured online material, including technical and scholarly publications, databases and proprietary information. The company has also partnered with publishers—mostly of academic journals— to index materials. Users will still have to purchase articles from the publishers, Park says; but he notes that DeepDyve’s query system offers a greater assurance that an article would contain the sought after information.

The company also offers DeepDyve Pro, a subscription version of its search engine that includes a visual information clustering function and advanced filtering.