|
Search |
Strong Points |
Tips and Notes. |
| 1
Second |
Multi Search. |
A little hard on the eyes, but
has some good search tools such as promotions, submissions, etc. |
|
People search |
Pretty good. Now part
of the Yahoo groups. |
|
7Search |
A large directory service. |
Browse the categories. Search returns are poor, but
has a large database. The supply many other search engines with results.
Used to be whosbest. |
800
Directory |
Find that 1-800 number
you're looking for. |
Great tool for
finding the "800" numbers that cost you nothing to call |
|
Below average (IMO). Too many
of their own pages. Popular with some. |
Used to be miningco.com. Now that it is About .com,
the majority of their results come from their own site. Not where
I would start. |
|
Ah-ha.com |
Another good search engine. |
Lists sites of different languages
in its returns. |
| 
Alpha
Search
|
Well done. Listing of
major search engines, as well as search resources, and tips. |
Fairly good. Expect pop up
adds however. |
|
General purpose that
allows and provides query like questions. |
Lots of extras..
ex.(host) "host:cnn.com
Clinton" - to return stories (CNN about Clinton) One of the largest
databases - may need to narrow search. Can search with other languages.
Will translate pages. Now part of the Yahoo group. |
|
|
Very popular general purpose. |
One of the best available.
Powered by fast ... fastsearch.com
Now part of the Yahoo group with Overture being purchased by Yahoo.
Let's hope they continue to provide good relevant results. |
AOL |
General purpose. |
Easy to use, finds AOL and Net Center content first. Lots
of "FUN" things to find here - but also has quality content to find.
Gets primary data from Google. |
Ask
Jeeves (*) |
Natural language
search - type in a question, get the results.
New look and tools: April 2003 |
Pioneered the "natural
language" type of search. Powered by Tehoma, yet they have fallen far
behind Google and Yahoo in the se market. Good for research items such as
history, timelines etc. Best results are if you scroll down below
the paid sponser listings. Annoying frame page when clicking in results,
but has a remove frame link though. |
|
Good at finding telephone
numbers. |
Allows input of phone number
and returns the name. |
|
Better
Brain |
Multi-search |
Searches Google, Alta-Vista,
Overture, etc. Large print makes it easy to read. |
|
THE Yellow pages on the Internet. |
One of the BEST places to find
a company. Find phone numbers, addresses, etc. Now
"Superpages" |
|
The People finder. |
Another 'Top Ten' for finding
people |
|
Search for software bugs
and solutions. |
Nice tool and bookmark for
keeping up with the things that cause other people problems. |
|
Bytedog |
New multi-search |
very poor, very slow. Promises
improvements? |
|
C4 |
Multi - Search |
Fair. Strong ties to
Google, and Scrub the Web. |
| Complete
Planet |
Boolean search |
** Not evaluated at this time. Some users may have
problems getting results due to structure. |
|
|
Just what it claims, an on-line
dictionary. |
Looking for a definition or
synonym? Go here. Even has translation tools from one language
to another. |
| Digital
Librarian |
Library selection of the Internet |
** Not evaluated at this time. Directory listing. |
|
Direct
Hit |
Very Good general search
tool. |
Top supplier to other search engines, Direct Hit is now
Teoma, which is owned by Ask Jeeves Inc. Makes you wonder who is searching
who huh? |
Open Directory
|
General areas of interest
- you'll probably find a site or 2 worth looking over. |
Site that changed "search".
"Open Directory Project" provides data for the big boys, Including Google,
Yahoo, Lycos, AOL, etc. It's human researched, best used as directory search. A
must for webmasters to be listed here. Human edited listings. |
Dogpile
(**) |
Mega-search for WWW,
Usenet, News, etc. One
of MY top 3. |
Put phrases in quotes, and
use a "-" to exclude a word or phrase. Use Boolean expressions.
ex. "Dolly Parton" + pictures. Also has mini-window to search
without using your browser "Remote" |
|
Your local library on-line. |
At one time this was the place
to study. Has become a "Membership" site, so you only get
any value from the site if you join. $80.00 per year is a little on the
high side when there is so much for free. |
|
Encyclopedia online. |
Now part of the "pay"
site groups. Owned by the Electric Library. |
Entireweb |
Fairly new engine. |
Good returns, but not great
They also offer free email. |
|
Google + engine |
Powered by Google, fast, good
returns. |
|
HUGE return on ALL types
of information. |
Use "Select words to add to
search" to narrow query. Menu based power search - good for new users.
FAST, and provides a ranking. Now part of the iWon group. |
|
Travel: Find maps,
reservations, hotels, and other travel related items |
Use the tabs at the top of the
page to find the travel info you need. |
|
Search
|
Strong Points
|
Tips and
Notes.
|
|
fastsearch.com
|
Duplicate |
Powers Alltheweb.com and
Lycos. Has Improved greatly.
Now part of the Yahoo group. |
Find
Article .com
|
Find technical articles on various subjects. |
Good for research and finding
fact based info. |
|
findwhat.com
|
Fair |
Offers filtering
option to block adult material, but returns on unique words is minimal. |
|
Gigablast
|
General search engine. |
Seems to provide better than average
results. |
|
Top Search - 3 years running:
Quick "up-to-date" results. |
One of the best! Although they do offer
"paid" results, they are well marked as sponsored links.
Tip: do not use the Boolean + symbols in search. A MUST for any
webmaster to be listed here. Provides results to Netscape and AOL,
as well as most other search tools. |
|
General, older, but
one of the better engines |
Large content, drop down
menu help. Has: news, shopping, and other channels.
Also has mini-"pop-up" windows search |
|
GPO
Access
|
Government Publications |
HUGE database of government
documents. Directory listing rather than true search. |
GTE
Superpages (*)
|
Business Yellow pages
PLUS |
Great if you are looking
for a business or a persons phone number. |
|
Search by current timeframe
- results are from recent postings. |
Good results - can slow due to traffic. Drop down box to search "any
word, all words, person, etc. - will narrow search to time frame, and
language. One of the oldest on the net. This has been VERY SLOW
lately: late 2002 - early 2003 |
|
Humor
Search
|
Jokes, humor, and laughs |
If you are looking for a
good laugh, jokes, humor, and fun stuff ... look here. Uses Sprinks,
and Looksmart .. returns "non-humor" related results from general search. |
|
Multi-Search with a twist |
Organized directory listing
to narrow search. Clean design, quick links to other topics.
VERY
nice. |
|
General. |
A Disney site, it has now gone from the
go.com to the overture tools. |
|
One of the top multi-search
tools |
very good ... one of the top ones.
Now part of the
Yahoo group with the recent Yahoo purchase of Overture.
|
|
|
General, HUGE |
Inktomi is one of the
HUGE databases that many others use to get results. MSN, iWon, and
others are members. Now owned by Yahoo. Another must for webmasters
to be listed here. |
|
Internet
Archive
|
Websites! |
Search for web-sites from
days gone by. HUGE archive of websites from 1994 - today. Check
out the "Way Back Machine". |
|
Internet
Librarian
|
The Library of the
Internet. |
Fantastic resource site. |
|
|
Resource tools.
websites, dictionary, translation, etc. |
FANTASTIC site. Searches
data depending upon the information you want. Google, MSN, etc.
Dictionary, web sites, articles, and even language translation. |
|
iWon
|
Uses Google |
They
tried to shove spyware at folks with their toolbar. Now
uses google, but owned by inktomi. Big cause of the spam emails and
pop-up folks get. |
|
Not bad. |
Uses Google, but they do well enough to supply results to other search pages. |
|
Kartoo
|
NOT your normal search engine. Fun
Flash search. |
Very fun to use, and does return
pretty good results. Flash based search, with graphical results. |
|
Geared for the kids
on the net. |
Great for finding answers
to all those questions the youngsters ask. |
|
Part directory service,
part search engine. |
** I haven't evaluated this
one in a long time. Used to be one of my favorites. |
|
Very good, and very popular.
quick
with good results |
Doesn't categorize, but does minor sorts of
material. One of the the biggest. Now owned by Microsoft and MSN.
|
|
Graphics, music, and specialized
content. |
Can filter content (adult, sports, etc.) Good for
beginners. Can be slow due to the amount of traffic it gets.
Now part of the Yahoo group. |
|
Search
|
Strong Points
|
Tips and
Notes.
|
|
General purpose -
One of the older sites, still one of the best. |
A great service. Shows links
to categories that are related...Has a good rating system. Has reviews,
catalogued sites. Great HELP
page to describe advanced search options. |
|
|
Search for Magazine articles |
** Not evaluated at this
time. Looks promising. |
|
MAMMA
|
Gaining on some of the older engines. |
New addition to this page: Supposed to be the
next big player in the search industry.
(uses Google, and Tehoma / ask.com) |
|
MAPS! - search for
a location. Now part of the Netscape group. |
This place will get you
where you are going. |
|
Multi-engine search |
Use quotes for phrases and,
you can refine sub-search with use of Boolean (+, -). |
|
Medline Plus
|
Medical Search |
** Not evaluated at this
time. Government database of medical Information |
|
Multi-engine search |
Returns are good, refined search for MP3, Images, shopping
, white pages, and classifieds. |
|
Metagopher
|
Multi-engine search |
Below average returns, too many
"pay" results. |
|
Mega
Spider
|
Directory Listing |
Not worth the effort.
Very little relevant returns. |
|
Monster
Crawler
|
Multi-engine search |
Powered by Info Space...
good results. |
|
MS
Maps
|
Now Expedia.com Microsoft satellite
photo maps. |
Photos are not the most
current - but there is a photo of damn near every inch of the planet. |
MSN
|
Microsoft search engine. |
Improved, but still poor. Uses Looksmart,
but provides its own ranking system built on the site that pays the most
for keywords. |
|
Multi-engine search |
Options for power search are limited ~ but still one of
the best engines out there. Easy "add to your site" options for
webmasters. |
|
a good
multi-search tool. |
Used to be snap.com, Uses dmoz, Google,
ask, Overture, Sprinks. Huge listing of sites. NBC purchased this
search tool from snap. |
Northernlight
(*)
|
Resource search |
Not for finding fun and
games sites. Very good for finding information, articles, and news. |
|
Netscape - has 6
of the most popular search engines to choose from. |
Great place to start if
you are new to searching the Internet. I've found the returns to
be one of the best. |
Onelook
|
Dictionary Definitions |
Find out "What does that
mean" |
Open Directory
|
General areas of interest - you'll probably find
a site or 2 worth looking over. |
Site that changed "search".
"Open Directory" provides returns for many: Including Google, Yahoo, ATW,
Lycos, AOL, etc. It's human researched, and better as directory mining than
search, but provides good data to other engines. Worth checking once. A
must for webmasters to be listed here. |
|
Document, FAQ, and
RFC specialist. |
Very Good. in-depth catalogs. Pretty good
speed, but not attractive. Great for hard to find topics on the Net. |
 Overture
|
Overture is a large database that others use
to collect information. |
They purchased the goto network, and built a
large database based on a pay per performance business. It's a
paid listing, If you are looking for the relevant small sites, you won't
find it here. They provide data to many other search sites such as
Alltheweb, Altavista and Infospace. Now a member of the Yahoo group
(July 2003) Not
good for search as they supply only paid listings, hopefully that will improve
with Yahoo.. |
| Search |
Strong Points |
Tips and Notes.
|
|
Pandia
|
Multi-Search Resource |
Tutorials on how to search. Tons of articles on current
search engine technology. Rankings, reviews, etc. on SE sites. |
| Prime
Computing |
Searches multiple engines, Including MP3 and other
specific databases. |
** Not evaluated at this time. |
Profusion
|
Another "Multi-Search" |
This search engine searches the engines you want it to search
- customizable - nice look and feel, but can be slow when busy |
| Proteus
|
yet another multi-search tool. |
fair |
|
Searching for medical information? |
One of the NBCi search efforts that is worthwhile. |
Puresearch |
Search various resources, news, maps, etc. |
** Not evaluated at this time |
Query Server
|
Unusual "Results" oriented search tool. Clustered
returns for the "type" of site or page you are looking for. |
Can provide multiple returns from many engines, but filters
the results into clusters. Good for research, Health, Medical, news,
etc. Worth book marking. |
|
Radio
Locator |
Find Radio Stations. |
Pretty specific here. |
|
Real Whitepages
|
The Whitepages phonebook on the Net. |
Maybe the best for finding old friends and phone numbers. |
|
Reference Search |
GREAT - Research resource. Combinations of words,
Boolean: [AND, OR, NOT and NEAR]. Use the asterisk* to include additional
forms and quotations marks for a phrases. |
|
Scrub the web
|
Popular Multi-Search |
Reports are good, returns results from multiple engines. |
|
search.com
|
C | Net, but the name alone pulls in traffic.
Great if you are looking for computer related information and software. |
Good site, but I've enjoyed c|net for many years.
Gets results from external sources now. |
|
Singing
Fish |
Multi - Media
search |
Search for music, movies, sounds,
etc. on the Internet. |
|
SMARTpages
|
A yellow pages directory. |
Good for business: address, phone
number, or other phone book type of information. |
|
sprinks |
Duplicates About.com. |
Same results as about.com, and lists multiple pages of same
sites. |
|
Stats
|
Statistical research
site. |
Collection of educational and governmental
documents. Database listing. |
|
FOR SALE |
Was great for finding information about computer problems
... no longer active |
|
Another people search. |
Another good people search. |
|
TelDir
|
International Telephone Directory. |
Global telephone directory that
searches for phone numbers, addresses, and other public information. |
|
|
One to the Top engines, provide
results to many others. |
Another "behind the scenes"
data mining resource that powers ask.com (and others): Similar to dmoz,
Overture, Direct Hit, Inktomi in function. A must for webmasters to
be listed here. |
|
Search for NEWS stories. |
Find news from around the world. |
|
|
Cluster Search. |
Fair: Provides topics in a side
frame that are related to your search. Clustering may be the future
of search tools. |
|
Vroosh
|
Meta-search |
poor: Returns from other engines
like Fast, MSN, ah-ha, teoma, and overture. |
|
General Purpose. |
Very Good. One of the AOL and excite.com groups. |
|
The best place to search for Medical information. |
Specific results, but good if you are searching for medical
information. |
Webwombat (*)
|
Find magazines, newspapers, phonebooks, etc. |
Australian site - has info for the world. If you're
looking for online magazines, newspapers, radio or TV stations - this is
the site to look at. |
WhoWhere
|
Another people search. |
Another great place to find people. |
|
|
General Purpose. |
Very Good: Has nice "Sneak
a Peak" preview of site. powered by Looksmart. |
|
ixQuick |
Multi-Search |
Very Good: Searches top engines. Good layout on the
returns page, with well-above average site design. Becoming a TOP
search engine. |
|
|
THE first Search Tool. (Human edited
directory listing)
Has a create your home
page |
Go through the category list first to filter
out non-relevant material and sites, and narrow results. Recently
purchased Inktomi, Overture, and still partners with Google to provide better
results. Clean interface, 2nd highest rated search tool behind Google. |
| Yellow Pages |
Yellow pages for Businesses. |
Similar to the super pages, but different results. |
| Zeal |
General Search |
Became popular in
Europe, and gaining global recognition. Part of the Looksmart group. |
|
Zip |
Find Zip Codes. |
Find the town or zip code. |
-
Be specific about
what you are looking for. "Cars" or "Pets" will generate far too
many results or returns to wade through.
-
Use commas, to narrow
a search. ex: pets, cats, longhair.
-
Use quotes for exact
phrases, "John Kennedy" rather than John Kennedy.
-
Use logical words
to separate terms. ex. "war AND Germany" rather than war, Germany.
-
Use the plus sign
to narrow the search to pages that contain both terms. ex: computers +
monitors.
-
Use the minus sign
to eliminate pages. ex: rentals - apartments.
If you are looking for
services in your local area, remember to put the location in with your search,
either by zip code, or local city and state. Use one of the larger
cities in your area. Example: Auto repairs:
"Auto repair, Pittsburgh, PA, brakes" is much better for finding
someone who does brake repairs in the Pittsburgh area than just typing in
"cars".
Each search engine
deals with words differently, experiment ... find 2 or 3 search sites that
provide you with the results you are looking for and bookmark them.
If you are interested
in reading more about what's going on in the search engine world, I invite
you to read my article The Search
Nightmare.
As of July 15, 2003:
Google:
Still the number one search engine in the rankings. Primary provider
for Netscape and AOL.
Yahoo: Now owns Overture, (who in turn owns Altavista,
Alltheweb (a/k/a Fast or fastsearch.com), Lycos, and Infospace), and Inktomi
MSN: Owns Looksmart
Ask: Owns Tehoma
Excite: Owns iWon
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