Maktoob Group, which owns the world's largest online Arab community; Maktoob.com, today unveiled the beta version of Araby.com, the first search engine in the world that offers advanced Arabic-language capabilities to users worldwide.
The multi-million dollar project conceived and created by Maktoob promises to deliver phenomenally superior search results to its users.
"We are proud to introduce Araby.com to users around the world,' said Samih Toukan, CEO of Maktoob Group. 'Araby.com brings powerful new features to enhance the Web browsing experience. Seeing as it is a Beta version, we will be optimizing and improving our services over the next few months, further enhancing Arabic language capabilities and adding new search verticals based on user feedback, in a bid to offer our users the very best of top-notch technological innovation.'
Araby.com has been programmed to crawl and search through tens of millions of Arabic documents on the internet and index each result as it comes up. When given a search command, Araby.com displays the most relevant search results through very advanced algorithms and relevancy criteria, unlike other directories in the Arab world that search through a limited database of sites. A network of hundreds of servers and the latest in search technology software allows the user to obtain access to the entire Arabic internet in a split second.
In addition, unlike other search engines that search for an exact word match, Araby.com is capable of detecting different grammatical forms of the Arabic word, thus providing far more accurate results. Araby.com has superior advantages over global competitors when it comes to searching in Arabic. For example the search engine recognizes stop words, prefixes and other grammatical features of the Arabic language, it recognizes different forms of the word and it recognizes spelling mistakes and suggests other forms of the word. Furthermore the engine recognizes offensive words and filters them from the search results.
'Araby.com is a search engine born in the Arab world that understands the Arabic language far better than a search engine that is a prototype of a foreign language search engine,' said Samih Toukan, CEO of Maktoob Group. 'We are confident that this capability alone will make Araby.com the search engine of choice among the Arabic-speaking people.'
Packed with a host of attractive features, Araby.com is user-focused and provides a tool to search through specific verticals such as news, Islam, forums, blogs and images.
'These verticals and category specific search areas are based on our understanding of the Arabic internet and the Arab user's needs and preferences. We know the market better than any global competitor; hence we can come up with areas that are localized and useful to our users. Take the Islam search for example which has never been done before', added Toukan. Satisfying the inclination of millions of users around the world, the Islam search will focus on topics of special interest such as the Holy Quran, Islamic forums and the roles of family and women in Islam, among others. This will allow the user to access the whole library of Islamic content on the net.
Furthermore Araby.com News search was compiled from hundreds of trusted sources chosen by the search engine's editors themselves. Additionally, discussion forums and blogs in the Arab world represent a large portion of the Arabic content online. Araby.com's specialized search in these categories will allow the user to search and follow millions of discussion and blog posts.
With over 4 million registered users, Maktoob.com boasts an impressive portfolio of associates and partners. 'As a product of the Maktoob Group, Araby.com will have access to its vast user base. However we are confident that in a very short span of time, Araby.com will grow in popularity to be immeasurably useful to Arabic-speaking people settled everywhere,' said Isam Bayazidi, head of Product Development of Araby.com.
'Our aim in launching new utilities like these is to provide the Arabic-speaking community over the world with services that are available to English-speakers, in a form that has been tailor-made to suit their specific needs,' concluded Isam Bayazidi.
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About Maktoob Group:
Maktoob Group comprises a network of leading online media companies and websites. In addition to the Arab world's leading portal, Maktoob.com, the Maktoob Group network includes, cashU (www.cashu.com) the electronic payment solution, , Souq.com (www.souq.com) auctions and marketplace, Bentelhalal (www.bentelhalal.com) the largest Arabic matrimonial site, , Sport4ever (www.sport4ever.com) a popular Arabic sports site and AdabWaFan (www.adabwafan.com) the online store for Arabic Books and Music. In 2005, Abraaj Capital, a leading regional private equity firm, acquired a stake in Maktoob, giving the Maktoob Group the resources to enhance its market share and accelerate its growth plans.
For further media information, please contact:
Elza Saleh/ Action PR
Tel # +962-6-5620596 Ext 103
Fax # +962-6-5602592
© Press Release 2006
