NEW YORK - The dream of bringing the same collaborative approach to the search engine that Wikipedia brought to the online encyclopedia will have to wait.
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said he is pulling the plug on the experiment, Wikia Search.
In a blog post Tuesday, Wales said the search engine "has not been enjoying the kind of success that we had hoped."
The idea was to let anyone help decide which websites appeared for different search queries -- a far cry from the approach of search companies like Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. Most search engines use constantly evolving algorithms to keep up with the proliferation of websites and the spammers looking to game results for a better spot on the list.
But the plan had its skeptics from the start. The project launched last year with tens of millions of web pages indexed, a fraction of the billions available with major search engines.
"In a different economy, we would continue to fund Wikia Search indefinitely," Wales said. "It's something I care about deeply. I will return to again and again in my career to search, either as an investor, a contributor, a donor, or a cheerleader."
For now, Wales said "we will be closing the doors on the Wikia Search project" and redirecting users to Wikianswers, a site that allows anyone to answer questions posted by others.
