There has been a lot of discussion around the Wolfram Alpha “fact engine” lately, especially since its official launch on May 18th.  Several people are making the mistake of trying to use the new Wolfram Alpha engine as if it were a search engine such as Google or Yahoo.  In reality, the Wolfram Alpha engine is in a completely different category than traditional search engines.

If you aren’t familiar with Wolfram Alpha, its primary function is to generate factual answers to questions.  Some examples of queries that Wolfram Alpha can generate answers for include: mathematical equations, stock prices, the distance from city A to city B, the population and average precipitation levels of a city and much more.

If you are a company or a marketer wondering how you can utilize Wolfram Alpha to boost your online presence or search engine traffic, you may want to take a step back.  Currently Wolfram Alpha only utilizes outbound links to link to official company websites, Wikipedia entries and Google SERP results for a company brand.  The information provided on a company profile primarily consists of stock information (if the company is publically traded), the location of company headquarters, financial information and other general facts.  Wolfram Alpha is not a wiki, so content can not be created, edited or expanded.  However, the site does have a community forum where general suggestions can be made.

In terms of local search, Wolfram Alpha is not currently attempting to provide any information related to products or services in a specific area.  For example, when attempting to search for information on “restaurants in Kansas City” Wolfram Alpha returns no results.

For now, it looks like companies and marketers are going to have to spend time marketing their goods and services elsewhere.  But stay tuned to what Wolfram Alpha is up to through their company blog.  There is always a possibility that they will expand the functionality of the engine.  As always, check back on Search Perspective for updates on Wolfram Alpha!