Interaction to define Expedia search results

Feedback from users on the most useful information will be used to determine search rankings on Expedia's website, it has been announced.

Under the new system, the online travel website will provide travel inspiration and holiday activities based on the opinions of other holidaymakers.

Tom Taylor, director of strategy for Expedia, explained: "The collective input from our millions of monthly visitors constantly improves the relevance of the search results."

Baynote, a company providing on-demand recommendation technology, has installed the social search system.

Jack Jia, the company's chief executive officer, said the technology was designed to support Expedia's intentions to improve experiences for users.

The company is not providing the first search engine based on social recommendations.

Scour, which is based on what consumers advise and traditional algorithms from Google, Yahoo! and MSN, was released earlier in the month.

According to the Google fellow in charge of the ranking team Amit Singhal, the search engine giant also tries to judge sites based on their appeal for users.

It does this by assessing the interest in the site from other areas in the web, including by counting the number of other websites which link to them.