Keep calm; he can smell fear

Wikia, a wiki-style project where users engage in improving its search engine, added a Firefox toolbar that simplifies the process of adding to its index.

The toolbar, "Wikia Evolution," prompts users to enter a keyword associated with a URL, which is then added to the Wikia index. They are also encouraged to edit or annotate page descriptions and titles.

Wikia is trying to draw participation and input from people that like the idea of a human-powered search project, but that still use Google and Yahoo as their primary search engines, writes Search Engine Land.

Wikia Search launched in January '07, to harsh criticism. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales "rebooted" it in June.

The search engine market — of which Google commands a nearly terrifying 70% share — was besieged by several competitors in the past few years, including Powerset and Cuil. The latter claims to understand page context and intentions behind search intents.

But Wikia's closest rival is probably people-powered Mahalo, which experimented with putting a person behind every search query but has yet to gather a significant following.