Direct Hit relies on popularity ranking as the basis of its service. Popular sites achieve a higher ranking than those that are less frequently visited. Direct Hit also incorporates an engine that works along the same lines to categorize its directory offerings. None of the links are annotated, so visitors must either have an idea of what they want going in or be prepared to do some sifting. Annotations, subcategories, alphabetized lists, and a site search engine are all promised for sometime in the future.
Users also choose how many results to view, and whether links are checked for currentness.
The software provides users with visual representations of relationships between textual documents. Users are able to drill down to find specific documents meeting their needs through various actions, queries, etc. Work on the Clever Project is on-going and there is currently no public access to the search engine. Among his many offerings are overviews of the major players, insights into indexing and ranking procedures, tutorials on search techniques, tips for webmasters, popularity guides, guides to technical performance, and summaries of legal issues. Site visitors who pay an annual subscription fee receive access to additional pages presenting more in-depth treatment of subjects in the public area such as details of how several major search engines work.