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Search engines are internet websites that use special software or teams of people to seek out and categorize Internet websites according to subject content. Using a search engine can help you quickly and easily locate useful information among the millions of webpages in cyberspace.
Metasearch engines make it possible to conduct the same subject search in multiple search engines at the same time and, usually, to consolidate the results.
Search Engine Watch is an Internet Web site that compiles information about the many search engines available on the Internet. At the Search Engine Watch website you can find listings of search engines, ratings and reviews, and news. Descriptions of the search engine sites that appear below are quoted from Search Engine Watch.
| Search Engines: | The term "search engine" is often used generically to describe both crawler-based search engines and human-powered directories. These two types of search engines gather their listings in radically different ways. Crawler-based search engines, such as Google, create their listings automatically. They "crawl" or "spider" the web, then users search through what the crawler programs have found. A human-powered directory, such as the Open Directory, depends on people compiling information for its listings. |
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| Voted several times "Most Outstanding Search Engine" by Search Engine Watch. Reputed to be the first choice for those searching the web. The crawler-based search engine is comprehensive and offers excellent relevancy rankings. Highly recommended. Google also offers a specialized search engine focusing on Federal government websites: Google Search: Uncle Sam | |
| AllTheWeb.com | Crawler-based search engine. All The Web provides comprehensive coverage of the web and outstanding relevancy. AllTheWeb.com was owned by a company called FAST; however, the search engine was purchased by search provider Overture in April 2003. |
| Yahoo | Launched in 1994, Yahoo is the web's oldest "directory," a place where human editors organize web sites into categories. Yahoo shifted to using Google's crawler-based listings for its main results in October 2002. |
| MSN Search | Microsoft uses its own team of editors to monitor the most popular searches being performed, then hand-picks sites believed to be most relevant. After performing a search, "Popular Topics" shown below the search box on the results page are also suggestions built largely by editors to guide you into making a more refined search. |
| Ask Jeeves | Ask Jeeves initially gained fame in 1998 and 1999 as being the "natural language" search engine. Ask Jeeves uses crawler-based technology to provide results to its users. These results come from the Teoma search engine that it owns. |
| HotBot | HotBot provides easy access to the web's four major crawler-based search engines: AllTheWeb.com/FAST, Google, Inktomi and Teoma. Unlike a meta search engine, it cannot blend the results from all of these crawlers together. |
| Lycos | Lycos, one of the oldest search engines on the web, launched in 1994. It ceased crawling the web for its own listings in April 1999 and instead uses crawler-based results provided by AllTheWeb, but adds some useful features. "Fast Forward" lets you see search results in one side of your screen and the actual pages listed in another. Relevant categories of human-compiled information from the Open Directory appear at the bottom of the search results page. At the top of the page, Lycos will suggest other searches related to your original topic right under the search box. |
| Teoma | Teoma is a crawler-based search engine owned by Ask Jeeves. Teoma has won praise for its relevancy since it appeared in 2000. Some people also like its "Refine" feature, which offers suggested topics to explore after you do a search. |
| Open Directory | The Open Directory uses volunteer editors to catalog the web. Formerly known as NewHoo, Open Directory launched in June 1998. Netscape, owned by AOL Time-Warner, acquired it in November 1998. The company pledged that anyone would be able to use information from the directory through an open license arrangement. You can search at the Open Directory site itself, but this is not recommended. Instead, to scan the valuable information compiled by the Open Directory, consider using the version offered by Google: the Google Directory. |
| "Child Friendly" Search Engines: | These search engines filter results, limiting displayed items to sites that contain material suitable for children. Many also offer games, lessons on web searching and other educational elements. |
| Ask Jeeves for Kids | Ask Jeeves for Kids uses natural-language technology that allows kids to ask questions. It combines human editorial judgment with filtering technology to enable kids to find both relevant and appropriate answers. |
| FirstGov for Kids | This is the United States government's interagency children's web portal. It lists a wide variety of federal children's sites in subject groupings. |
| Kids Click! | KidsClick! was created by a group of librarians at the Ramapo Catskill Library System, northwest of New York. It is currently maintained by the Colorado State Library. |
| Yahooligans | Yahooligans! is a browsable, searchable directory of Internet sites checked by an experienced educator to ensure the content and links are appropriate for kids aged 7-12. |
| Family Friendly Sites List of Child Safe Search Engines | Family Friendly Sites offers websites a designation that will be easily recognized by family members and other Internet users. |
| Searchengines.Com List of Child Safe Search Engines | This directory lists links to search engine sites that are tailored for children. |
| Metasearch Engines: | Unlike search engines, metacrawlers don't crawl the web themselves to build listings. Instead, they allow searches to be sent to several search engines all at once. The results are then blended together onto one page. |
| Family Friendly Search | Meta search service that queries major kid-friendly search engines (Yahooligans, AOL Kids, KidsClick!, and Saluki Search). |
| Vivisimo | Enter a search term, and Vivismo will not only pull back matching responses from major search engines but also automatically organize the pages into categories. Winner of Best Meta Search Engine award from Search Engine Watch in 2002. |
| EZ2Find | This meta search engine provides results from AllTheWeb, AltaVista, Google, Open Directory, Teoma, Wisenut and Yahoo. |
| Kartoo | If you like the idea of seeing your web results visually, this meta search site shows the results with sites being interconnected by keywords. |
| SurfWax | Searches against major engines or provides those who open free accounts the ability to chose from a list of hundreds. Using the "SiteSnaps" feature, you can preview any page in the results and see where your terms appear in the document. Allows results or documents to be saved for future use. |
| Fazzle | Fazzle offers a highly flexible and customizable interface to a wide variety of information sources, ranging from general web results to specialized search resources in a number of subject specific categories. Formerly called SearchOnline. |
| Ithaki | Ithaki probably the most "global" meta search engine, is available in 14 languages and offers over 35 different categories for limiting searches. Ithaki offers country specific search, querying only local, rather than regional, search engines. |
| DogPile | Popular metasearch site owned by InfoSpace that sends a search to a customizable list of search engines, directories and specialty search sites, then displays results from each search engine individually. |
| Mamma | Founded in 1996, Mamma.com is one of the oldest meta search engines on the web. Mamma searches against a variety of major crawlers, directories and specialty search sites. |
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