Ashraf Tawakkol, CEO of Taya IT stated that while over the past nine years growth in the number of Internet users from the Arab World has been exponential, it is only in the last couple of years that there have been a lot of Arabs putting user-generated Arabic content online. Additionally, major Arab publishers are finally making the investment necessary to move their content online. Tawakkol believes that these two factors will make Yajeel relevant for its users.

Yajeel approaches the concept of search in a new way. Yajeel’s web crawlers first categorize the web, and then allow users to search in the specific category or vertical where the interest lies. Search in this way removes many of the irrelevant results that plague traditional search engines.

“Following previous beta releases, feedback and focus testing from technology bloggers in the region all pointed in the same direction: to provide a simple and more focused search experience yielding highly relevant results, and a means for navigational discovery for online content in Arabic,” Tawakkol said. “While enhancing Yajeel’s offering and feature set, it became apparent that incorporating a social element was critical to adding value to the user experience in a way which has yet to be introduced to the Arabian Web.”

In addition to Yajeel Kora, Taya IT has launched a second vertical or search category with its latest beta release. Yajeel Ekhtar (ekhtar.yajeel.com) is the first social media search engine in the Middle East. It currently allows users to search multiple social networks such as Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube; with Facebook and others to be added soon. Yajeel Ekhtar users can also discover what content is trending amongst Arabic users from across the globe and share their search results with others. This means that Arabic users of social networking sites need to quickly figure out how to tweak the privacy settings on their accounts, since their posts are now not only public, but also efficiently searchable.

Currently, Yajeel’s search results come up without annoying advertising on the borders. Tawakkol wouldn’t reveal how long that would continue or the company’s business plan, except to say that that the emphasis would be on empowering publishers not advertisers.