Name of your website?Linusearch
Your name?
Ernie Smith
Your Location (city, etc)
Niangua
Please give us a short summary of your website?
Linusearch is a Gnu Linux Search engine. We exclude websites that have anti-linux content to provide a search index of useful linux sites. You can submit your linux related site for inclusion in our search engine to receive targeted traffic. For those of you who are saying what is linux it is an operating system an alternative to Microsoft Windows,
What inspired you to launch your own website?
I have been a linux user for many years and although the current search engines are often useful I would find myself browsing through search results that had nothing to do with linux or even people complaining and griping about linux so I launched this service to save people time and provide resources to linux compatible hardware and software.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
About 8 years ago I launched a little yahoo geocities site that they had that you could setup for free it was a site designed to promote linux it included recommended programs and screen shots of my linux desktop.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
I wanted something that would be easy for people to remember and I wanted a .com not a .org or .net I was concerned that if I setup one of those people would forget the name of the site and sit their and be like what was that site. Let's see www.linusearch.com and may never find it again so I just went with the .com and linusearch was available and I felt would be easy to remember.
What makes your website different from other, similar offerings?
Since the websites are human edited/hand picked then they are reviewed and once found to have useful information are included in our search index. Whereas the downfall of many search sites is that they are so automated that they would index anything that has the word linux in it. Including the I hate linux bloggers and linux users are idiots type sites which is not what you want in your search results if you are a linux user.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
I would like to keep it. I hope it provides a valuable tool for the linux community and if it would generate some income and I could improve the site and take care of needed improvements at home or free myself up to provide more linux related services like hardware reviews and articles that would be great also.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
That depends on how you measure success. My objective is to provide something valuable to the linux community as for as that is concerned I believe that this has been a very successful project I use the site myself and my friends do as well it has saved us a lot of time.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
Dedicated servers. Email service for our users. Have a karamba or widget type program designed where you could just type in your search right their on your desktop and get results. Or submit your site. Weather, online linux games, news articles and as mentioned previously hardware reviews. Their are so many things I could think of right now though we are trying to keep a basic focus so that we can do a good job of what we are providing in the future it would be nice to expand. And be able to generate jobs for qualified linux users through the site.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
We would find a way we may have to hire employees or gather volunteers possibly but I would not just walk away from this.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
With any site that you setup sooner or later you will be troubleshooting an error in your code. Still for the most part the experience has been quite enjoyable.
What has been your biggest challenge?
Balancing home life and other responsibilities as I work full time and set aside time to spend with my wife and also to promote and develop this site.
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
When I launched the website I thought that the linux community would be excited about this and be ready to back it and get the word out. It turns out however that the linux community has been disappointed by various failed linux search engines in the past so everyone seems to have basically dismissed us as another venture doomed to failure. Of course I am not that type of person to throw in the towel on something that I Know is a great product. I am also very resourceful and budget oriented so I have built this on a shoe string budget which will enable us to keep it going for the years to come. Still to my disappointment many linux sites have links to linux search engine sites that either no longer exist or have yet to come I do not understand why they would not be interested and promoting something that is already here and available still I will continue to work this and keep it running for the years to come.
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
I have had it running for 3 months now. Whether we accomplish anything that we would like to accomplish or not I enjoy having my own piece of online real estate and have no plans of closing shop.
Will ibm consider developing a Linux Distro?
No Answer. Oh well. Maybe next time.
What is your website address?
Linusearch
