PRFilter, the first press release search engine, has been launched today to enable anyone to quickly find recent relevant press releases. The service indexes thousands of releases each day and is designed to save journalists and bloggers time and get PR stories in front of the most relevant media.

PRFilter’s search results are ranked based on a combination of relevance to the terms searched for and the extent to which PRFilter’s patent pending Active Interest Technology considers a release to be relevant to a greater number of journalists and bloggers. So the more people PRFilter thinks a release could be relevant to, the higher it is ranked.

The search application has been developed by UK press release distribution company RealWire and represents a significant expansion of its PRFilter platform. The technology was subject to testing by UK journalists and bloggers at the end of 2010 and initial feedback has been very positive.  Founder of UK PR and journalist community, UKTJPR, Andrew Lim, said, “PRFilter is a fantastic way to manage press releases and find interesting stories.”

Initial sources include key paid newswires and distribution services such as Business Wire, PRNewswire, MarketWire and RealWire themselves. In addition releases are starting to be sourced direct from a number of the world’s largest companies with the initial focus being on the technology and media industries. More sources are to be added in the coming weeks.

Adam Parker, Chief executive of RealWire, said “PRFilter is designed to help both the Media and PR communities to find relevant stories as quickly and easily as possible. In a world where relevance is increasingly at a premium we need tools that focus on increasing the signal to noise ratio, not simply amplifying it. PRFilter seeks to do this in a human way by basing its automated predictions of relevance on the topics that journalists and bloggers write about the most.”

PRFilter operates as a standalone service, though its relevance prediction technology is now integrated into RealWire’s own existing distribution service offering.

The PRFilter platform also allows journalists and bloggers to register to access a specific profile built automatically from their own or their publication’s articles. This profile then ranks the press release content based on the topics they write about the most. Registered users can also teach PRFilter to better understand their interests by providing feedback on the releases suggested.