Electrical companies launch industry Web site

Ten non-competing electrical manufacturers pooled their resources and ideas and launched "ElectricalSearch," an Internet search engine that links users to more than 800 electrical industry Web sites. The site, now online at www.electricalsearch.com, is promoted as a fast, efficient and unbiased search engine that can help end-users, specifying engineers, distributors, reps and manufacturers find electrically oriented product and industry information at the Web sites of manufacturers, trade associations and industry publications. The site's supporters expect to eventually link users to 4,000 to 6,000 electrical-related Web sites.

The sponsoring manufacturers, who split the cost of developing the site, are Advance Transformer Co., Rosemont, Ill.; B-Line Systems, Inc., Highland, Ill.; EGS Electrical Group, Chicago, Ill.; Essex Group, Inc., Fort Wayne, Ind.; Framatome Connectors International (Burndy), Manchester, N.H.; Gould Circuit Protection Group, Newburyport, Mass.; Ideal Industries, Inc., Sycamore, Ill.; Pass & Seymour/Legrand, Syracuse, N.Y.; Siemens Energy & Automation, Inc., Alpharetta, Ga.; and W.H. Brady Co., Milwaukee, Wis.

ElectricalSearch offers free links to electrical manufacturers, industry associations and electrical publications and is not intended to be a money-making venture for its sponsors, says Michael Gambino, president of M.J. Gambino & Associates, Inc., Syracuse, N.Y. Gambino, who organized the sponsors of Electrical-Search, says the manufacturers believe they will gain enough exposure from the Web surfers directed to their sites to make their investments in the project worthwhile.

The site follows a trend on the Internet where groups with similar information needs develop their own search engines to make it easier for users to find information they need. Because the site was designed specifically for the electrical community, ElectricalSearch cuts down on the time users waste sifting through the unwieldy number of hits returned by the generic search engines such as Yahoo, Infoseek or Excite. Electrical-Search only links users to sites that the sponsoring manufacturers have prescreened for useful information.