How Mahalo Works

If you g­o to Mahalo and pull up a search, you might see some links with little symbols next to them. These symbols are used to tag links. There are three kinds of tags:

If you find a dead link on Mahalo or a link that leads to a substandard Web site, you can report it by clicking on the "Report a problem" link. You can also discuss the page on Mahalo's forums by clicking on the "Discuss this Page" link.

Perhaps you know of a link that should be on the Mahalo page but isn't. In that case, you can click on the "Recommend a Link" option. Clicking on it opens a couple of fields. The first field is for the link's URL and the second is for a short description of why you feel the link belongs on Mahalo's search results page.

In the next section, we'll learn about the guides who generate Mahalo search results.

There are two types of Mahalo contributors: full time Guides (FTGs) and part time Guides (PTGs). Full time guides are Mahalo employees and are similar to a newspaper's staff of writers. Part time guides are more like freelancers. To become a part time guide, potential contributors must join the Mahalo community and send in the application found on Mahalo.com. Once the user is approved, he or she can work on creating search result pages (SeRPs).

Mahalo's culture thrives on a strong communication network among employees and contributors. Mahalo uses e-mail and a message board to bolster the exchange of ideas and also encourages guides to download an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) program and an instant messaging program to facilitate live conversations.

Full time guides peer-review one another's work. An FTG submits SeRPs to other FTGs and an editorial staff. They also serve as editors for PTG submissions and have the authority to reject a PTG submission, sending it back to the PTG for changes and corrections. Full time guides are the only guides who can create stubs -- search return pages that only have a few links, rather than a full SeRP with multiple sections.

There are several tiers in the part time guides hierarchy:

Mahalo pays part time guides based on the number of SeRPs accepted, by check or through PayPal.

Mahalo pays employees by check or through PayPal.

Mahalo gets the money to pay guides from investors. The site has secured enough funding to operate for up to five years. Mahalo's long-term business plan is to generate revenue by selling advertising space on SeRPs [source: Associated Press].

In the next section, we'll examine the Mahalo Greenhouse, where guides build search results.

Mahalo guides build search results pages (SeRPs) in the Mahalo Greenhouse. The Greenhouse uses MediaWiki software, which allows multiple users to create and modify wikis.

Each results page must conform to Mahalo's standards, including the appearance and layout of the page. Mahalo provides guides the code they need to generate a SeRP, complete with generic headings that the employee must replace with the appropriate search topic.

The most important standard for any SeRP is that the results have to be the best content on the Internet regarding that search topic. Mahalo's standards mean that certain kinds of sites are not acceptable as search returns, including:

Mahalo strives to include only sites that are sources of expert information and provide the user with a pleasant, helpful experience. If a site doesn't meet those criteria, it's not likely that Mahalo will feature it on a SeRP. In cases of copyright infringement, Mahalo places the site on a list of banned sites and will never feature it on any SeRP.

Other search categories, called verticals, have different layouts. Mahalo aims to group search results together by relevance and focus. For example, in travel searches, all hotel search results appear under one section, while sites dealing with air travel appear in another. The goal is to create a SeRP the user can scan quickly to find exactly what he or she is looking for, but to include plenty of other great links so that he or she can browse around to other related pages.

In the next section, we'll learn about the steps a Mahalo guide follows to create a SeRP.

Mahalo depends on contributions from two different sources: the in-house FTGs and the remote contributions from PTGs. The FTGs primarily edit the SeRPs that PTGs build. Building a SeRP requires several steps to ensure that only the best links are displayed on Mahalo. 

The PTG begins building a SeRP by searching Mahalo's Most Wanted page to find a topic. Some of the topics on the Most Wanted page come from user requests or threads on Mahalo's message board. Others are gaps in Mahalo's coverage or breaking news stories. Mahalo divides the Most Wanted page into verticals, or broad topics. Verticals are very general categories, like food, business or travel. Verticals are then broken down into subcategories. For example, the food vertical has the subcategory beverages. Each subcategory has a specific template guides must use when creating a SeRP. Most Wanted topics are color coded -- red items are unclaimed search topics, while green items are already claimed by another contributor.

A guide should choose a vertical and topic that he or she is familiar with but that isn't a conflict of interest. Once a guide finds a good topic, he or she claims it by clicking on the topic's link. Guides have seven days to complete a SeRP. If they don't work on it for two days in a row, Mahalo automatically sends them a reminder e-mail about the SeRP's completion due date.

The next step is in the SeRP creation process is building the SeRP template. Mahalo assigns a shortcut code to each template, which the guide copies and pastes into the editor window. The template makes creating SeRPs easier, and it also ensures that guides follow Mahalo's style and formatting standards. The guide builds the SeRP from the generic template, replacing the pre-existing template terms, such as "beverage," with the Most Wanted search term, like "Coca-Cola."

Once the guide has a SeRP template ready to go, he or she can start searching for great links. Mahalo guides search for links the same way most Internet users do -- they start with big search engines like Yahoo! and Google. They may also use other search methods, referring to sites like del.icio.us and Digg. When a guide finds a really good link that meets Mahalo's standards, he or she activates the Greenhouse tool.

The Greenhouse tool generates a toolbox with the appropriate SeRP name. A dropdown menu including the titles of all the subsections of the SeRP allows a guide to designate where the link belongs. Guides must fill out these other fields as well:

Once the guide follows these steps, he or she can click on Add URL in the Greenhouse toolbox. The tool automatically adds the link into the corresponding SeRP. After the guide has added all the links that he or she feels are necessary for the SeRP, the newly built page is ready for an editorial review.

In the next section, we'll look at the steps a guide takes to ensure that Mahalo's editors accept his or her SeRP.

After a guide has found three to five great links for each section of the SeRP, he or she includes a guide note before submitting the SeRP for quality control. A guide note is a short description of the search term and a short list of facts about the search term. These facts are designed to be brief and verifiable, presenting relevant information in a user-friendly way.

Next, the guide should fill out the related searches field. This field is for search topics related to the SeRP. Mahalo encourages guides to list topics in order of relevance. Guides can even include search terms that don't have their own SeRP yet.

Another important field is the redirect box. Users can type just about any combination of words or phrases into a search bar while looking for information on a specific topic. It's up to the guide to anticipate user word choice. The guide should list every variation for the search term he or she can think of, including common typos and misspellings, to ensure that a user will find the right page.

Guides can also fill out a category field. This is a list of all the categories in which the search topic belongs. Mahalo asks that guides limit themselves to no more than 10 categories. Mahalo designates all category names -- guides should not try to create their own.

Once the guide has finished the SeRP, it's time to submit it to quality control. FTGs and Mahalo mentors -- expert users who help other guides -- review all SeRP submissions, checking them for errors, content quality, dead links, relevance and organization. If a SeRP meets Mahalo's standards, a Mahalo representative will inform the guide that Mahalo accepts the SeRP and will feature it in searches. The guide receives payment for the SeRP and can move on to developing a new SeRP for a different topic.

If for some reason Mahalo doesn't accept the SeRP, an FTG or mentor will send it back to the guide for edits. Even if Mahalo accepts a SeRP without requiring its guide to make revisions, editors may make changes to it before publishing it.

To learn more about Mahalo and related topics, follow the links on the next page.