[Manialinks] A Search Engine

[banjee]

I know that there is a vast multitude of manialinks out there, but the only way to find them right now is through word of mouth, or maniapub. that is why i suggest the usefulness of a search engine. i know that i would definitely be using manialinks more if i was able to find ones that were more suited for me instead of the big well known ones. it would give the smaller ones a change to, maybe, come to the spotlight.

[fastforza]

You can also find Manialinks that have been advertised on forums.

It is a great idea and one that has been suggested before. I recall someone made a search engine where people submitted links manually in TrackMania Forever too. I know Nadeo are extremely busy with new titles and their new platform (MP 2.0). But for future reference, they can also automate this.

For example:
1) Nadeo can create new Manialink 'meta' elements (like HTML has).

Code: Select all

<manialink version="1">
    <timeout>0</timeout>
    <!-- New meta elements -->
    <meta name="description" content="Download free TM2 skins/cars/whatever!!!" />
    <meta name="keywords" content="skins,cars,free,tm2,maniaplanet" />
</manialink>

2) Each time a Manialink is updated or created on the Player Page, Nadeo reads these 'meta' elements and inserts the content into their database.***

3) Nadeo then develops a search Manialink (e.g ManiaSearch) and then makes their database searchable based on the content and keywords.

*** In order for Nadeo to keep up with these changes they'll need to create a bot that crawls/reads ManiaLink pages and their 'meta' elements so the database is always 100% up to date.

TL;DR or I over explained it ...
It can be like any modern search engine today (Google, Bing, Yahoo etc.). Things like these can take time to develop.

Why does it have to be this complex? (You may ask)
The way I see it, the only way to currently find a ManiaLink is by its code/name (the one you type in the address bar). Very inconvenient unless you know where you're going. So with this kind of search engine it'll be a hundred times easier to find content and ManiaLinks.

You'll also notice that I never suggested anything like the search engine from TMF, where ManiaLink's were submitted manually. Why? A system like that will end up with a tonne of dead/outdated links.

And there we have it. Banjee's idea with my modern search engine idea.

[AlexKF]

+1 to the idea.

I hope to see this in MP 2.0. In one sense, the perfect manialink system would be like a web browser... maniahome = google and manialinks = websites