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Search Engines List :
7Search -Pay for position SE.
Acclaim Search -by ValueCom.
AOL -Lousy web search.
AllCrawl -"Why Choose, When You Can Have It All?"
All The Web -Claims alot of pages, but disappointing.
AltaVista -Also offers translation.
Amnesi -Search internet server names (DNS names).
Ampleo -Human interactive search engine. Free.
Ask Jeeves -Uses natual language input. Mediocre.
Deja.Com -Search UseNet newsgroups.
Deoji -Includes tools for WebTV.
Dewa -
DevSearch -The web developer's SE.
DirectHit -One of the biggies. Pretty good.
DMOZ -Open directory project
Excite -Rated as one of the best SEs.
Findit2000 -
FindWhat -Pay for position.
Frequent Finders -Search for words in the actual URLs.
Funkycat -International search engine with a broad index.
GenieKnows -
Google -Huge *and* accurate, a favorite. Weighs popularity.
Go -Mis-managed by Mickey Mouse & Co.
Go2Net -
GoshDarn! -Hot new search engine
HotBot -Scalable. Search a domain, eg. [.edu].
iBound -
Info Hiway -
Infomak -
InfoSeek -Owned by Disney. Average.
Intelliseek -Their Profusion site allows searching 1000 sites, including many on the 'invisible web'
IXQuick -Highly rated.
Jump City -
Kanoodle -Pay for position SE.
Link Centre -
Link Master -
Links2Go -Most-referenced pages by topics; it's also personalizable.
Look Up -
Lost Link/ Web Links -Great site, adds links instantly... with banners!
Lycos -"Wolf spider" (Latin). Another SE biggie.
MSN -
NBCi -New respect for this search engine
TheNet1 -
Nexor Aliweb -
NorthernLight -Recommended, plus a special pay collection.
Overture -Top pay for position SE, high commercial relevance.
Pathfinder/ Time-Warner -Time, People, Money, Fortune, etc...
Reference.Com -UseNet resources
Rocket Links -Pay for position SE.
Scrub The Web -Robot SE claims to have indexed 80 MM pages. Search.Com -CNET. Infoseek SE, own db for subjects.
Search4Info -
Search Hound -Pay for position. Slow?
Search King -Indexes instantly. Surfers votes determine ranking.
Snap -Advanced setting allows excluding words, eg. xxx, porn, etc..
Splat Search -
Subjex -
Super Cyber Search -Pay for position.
ToggleBot -10MM URLs. MetaSearch, Directory, Auction Search, etc..
TopClick -The Private SE. Claims to protect privacy. No cookies.
WebCrawler -Very user friendly interface. Owned by Excite.
Web Direct -
WebSearch2K -New SE, pay for position, no adult.
WebVentureHotlist -
What-U-Seek-
Where2Go -TOP 20 search engine, directory of URLs.
WWWHunter -
Yahoo! -Leading net directory.
Zen Search -
Z Search -"The last name in searching"
The search engines below are all excellent choices to
start with when searching for information.
Google
http://www.google.com
Voted four times Most
Outstanding Search Engine by Search Engine Watch readers, Google has
a well-deserved reputation as the top choice for those searching the
web. The crawler-based service provides both comprehensive coverage of
the web along with great relevancy. It's highly recommended as a first
stop in your hunt for whatever you are looking for.
Google provides the option to find more than web pages, however.
Using on the top of the search box on the Google home page, you can
easily seek out images from across the web, discussions that are taking
place on Usenet newsgroups, locate news information or perform product
searching. Using the More link provides access to human-compiled
information from the Open Directory (see below),
catalog
searching and other services.
Google is also known for the wide range of features it offers, such
as cached links that let you "resurrect" dead pages or see
older versions of recently changed ones. It offers excellent spell
checking, easy access to dictionary definitions, integration of stock
quotes, street maps, telephone numbers and more. See Google's help
page for an entire rundown on some of these features. The Google
Toolbar has also won a popular following for the easy access it
provides to Google and its features directly from the Internet Explorer
browser.
In addition to Google's unpaid editorial results, the company also
operates its own advertising programs. The cost-per-click AdWords
program places ads on Google as well as some of Google's partners.
Similarly, Google is also a provider of unpaid editorial results to some
other search engines. For a list of major partnerships, see the Search
Providers Chart.
Google was originally a Stanford University project by students Larry
Page and Sergey Brin called BackRub. By 1998, the name had been changed
to Google, and the project jumped off campus and became the private
company Google. It remains privately held today.
Getting Listed: Read the Submitting
To Google section of Search Engine Watch's Essentials
Of Search Engine Submission guide for more about being included in
Google's editorial results and the Google
AdWords section for more about its paid listings programs.
Search Engine Watch members
have access to the How
Google Works section of the web site, which provides in-depth
coverage of the editorial and paid listings processes at Google. Learn
more about becoming a member on the membership
information page.
Yahoo
http://www.yahoo.com
Launched in 1994, Yahoo is the web's oldest "directory," a
place where human editors organize web sites into categories. However,
in October 2002, Yahoo made a giant shift to crawler-based listings for
its main results. These came from Google until February 2004. Now, Yahoo
uses its own search technology. Learn more in this recent review
from our SearchDay newsletter, which also provides some updated
submission details.
In addition to excellent search results, you can use tabs above the
search box on the Yahoo home page to seek images, Yellow Page listings
or use Yahoo's excellent shopping search engine. Or visit the Yahoo
Search home
page, where even more specialized search options are offered.
The Yahoo Directory still survives. You'll notice
"category" links below some of the sites lists in response to
a keyword search. When offered, these will take you to a list of web
sites that have been reviewed and approved by a human editor.
It's also possible to do a pure search of just the human-compiled
Yahoo Directory, which is how the old or "classic" Yahoo used
to work. To do this, search from the Yahoo
Directory home page, as opposed to the regular Yahoo.com home page.
Then you'll get both directory category links ("Related Directory
Categories") and "Directory Results," which are the top
web site matches drawn from all categories of the Yahoo Directory.
Sites pay a fee to be included in the Yahoo Directory's commercial
listings, though they must meet editor approval before being accepted.
Non-commercial content is accepted for free. Yahoo's content
acquisition program also offers paid inclusion, where sites can also
pay to be included in Yahoo's crawler-based results. This doesn't
guarantee ranking, Yahoo promises. The CAP program also bring in content
from non-profit organizations for free.
Like Google, Yahoo sells paid placement advertising links that appear
on its own site and which are distributed to others. These are sold
through Overture. Yahoo
purchased Overture in a company Yahoo purchased in October 2003.
Overture was formerly called GoTo until late 2001. More about it can
be found on the Paid
Listings Search Engines page. Overture purchased
AllTheWeb (see below)
in March 2003 and acquired
AltaVista (see below)
in April 2003. Now Yahoo owns these, gained as from its purchase of
Overture.
Technology AltaVista and AllTheWeb was combined with that of Inktomi,
a crawler-based search engine that grew out UC Berkeley and then
launched as its own company in 1996, to make the current Yahoo crawler.
Yahoo purchased
Inktomi in March 2003.
Getting Listed: Read the Submitting
To Yahoo section of Search Engine Watch's Essentials
Of Search Engine Submission guide for more information on appearing
in Yahoo's own editorial results. Read the Overture
section of Search Engine Watch's Essentials
Of Search Engine Submission guide for more information on Overture's
paid listings program.
Search Engine Watch members
have access to the How
Yahoo Works section of the web site, which provides in-depth
coverage of how Yahoo gathers listings. The How
Overture Works page, which provides in-depth coverage of how
cost-per-click ads can be placed with Overture.
Ask Jeeves
http://www.askjeeves.com
Ask Jeeves initially gained fame in 1998 and 1999 as being the
"natural language" search engine that let you search by asking
questions and responded with what seemed to be the right answer to
everything.
In reality, technology wasn't what made Ask Jeeves perform so well.
Behind the scenes, the company at one point had about 100 editors who
monitored search logs. They then went out onto the web and located what
seemed to be the best sites to match the most popular queries.
Today, Ask Jeeves instead depends on crawler-based technology to
provide results to its users. These results come from the Teoma search
engine that it owns, which is described below.
Ask Jeeves is doing
innovative things with invisible
tabs and with what it calls Smart
Search. We think the future of search will be this much smarter
approach to delivering up more than just web pages. It makes Ask
Jeeves a well-worth a visit by anyone looking for information.
Ask Jeeves also owns now closed Direct Hit service.
Getting Listed: For the main editorial listings at Ask Jeeves,
you need to be listed with Teoma, which is described below.
Paid listings come from Google AdWords, described above.
Search Engine Watch members
have access to the How
Ask Jeeves Works page, which provides in-depth coverage of how Ask
Jeeves integrates listings from Teoma and its own editors.
The search engines below are other good choices to consider when
searching the web.
AllTheWeb.com
http://www.alltheweb.com
Powered by Yahoo, you may find AllTheWeb a lighter, more customizable
and pleasant "pure search" experience than you get at Yahoo
itself. The focus is on web search, but news, picture, video, MP3 and
FTP search are also offered.
AllTheWeb.com was previously owned by a company called FAST and used
as a showcase for that company's web search technology. That's why you
sometimes may sometimes hear AllTheWeb.com also referred to as FAST or
FAST Search. However, the search engine was purchased
by search provider Overture (see below)
in late April 2003, then later become Yahoo's property when Yahoo bought
Overture. It no longer has a connection with FAST.
AOL Search
http://aolsearch.aol.com
(internal)
http://search.aol.com/(external)
AOL Search provides users with editorial listings that come Google's
crawler-based index. Indeed, the same search on Google and AOL Search
will come up with very similar matches. So, why would you use AOL
Search? Primarily because you are an AOL user. The "internal"
version of AOL Search provides links to content only available within
the AOL online service. In this way, you can search AOL and the entire
web at the same time. The "external" version lacks these
links. Why wouldn't you use AOL Search? If you like Google, many of
Google's features such as "cached" pages are not offered by
AOL Search.
Getting Listed: AOL essentially duplicates the editorial and
ad listings that are shown on Google, so you need to be listed with
Google in one of these ways, as described above
.
Search Engine Watch members
have access to the How
AOL Search Works page, which provides in-depth coverage of how AOL
Search operates and why there may be subtle differences between it and
Google.
HotBot
http://www.hotbot.com
HotBot provides easy access to the web's three major crawler-based
search engines: Yahoo, Google and Teoma. Unlike a meta
search engine, it cannot blend the results from all of these
crawlers together. Nevertheless, it's a fast, easy way to get different
web search "opinions" in one place.
HotBot's "choose a search engine" interface was introduced
in December 2002. However, HotBot has a long history as a search brand
before this date.
HotBot debuted in May 1996, it gained a strong following among
serious searchers for the quality and comprehensiveness of its
crawler-based results, which were provided by Inktomi, at the time. It
also caught the attention of experienced web users and techies,
especially for the unusual colors and interface it continues to sport
today.
HotBot gained more notoriety when it switched over to using Direct
Hit's "clickthrough" results for its main listings in 1999.
Direct Hit was then one of the "hot" search engines that had
recently appeared. Unfortunately, the quality of Direct Hit's results
couldn't match those of another "hot" player that had debuted
at the same time, Google. HotBot's popularity began to drop.
Even worse, HotBot also suffered by being owned by Lycos (now Terra
Lycos). Lycos had acquired HotBot when it purchased Wired Digital in
October 1998. Lycos failed to make search a priority on its flagship
Lycos site as well as HotBot through much of 1999 and 2000, as it
focused instead on adding "portal" features. The company
refocused on search in late 2001, making significant improvements to the
Lycos site and, as noted, reworked the HotBot site at the end of 2002.
Getting Listed: For the main editorial listings at HotBot, you
need to be listed with the three major crawlers that it can query.
Follow the links for these crawlers on this page, where they are
mentioned.
Teoma
http://www.teoma.com
Teoma is a crawler-based search engine owned by Ask Jeeves. It has a
smaller index of the web than its rival crawler-competitors Google and
Yahoo. However, being large doesn't make much of a difference when it
comes to popular queries, and Teoma's 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.
The "Resources" section of results is also unique, pointing
users to page that specifically serve as link resources about various
topics. Teoma was purchased by Ask Jeeves in September 2001 and also
provides some results to that web site.
Getting Listed: Read the Submitting
To Teoma section of Search Engine Watch's Essentials
Of Search Engine Submission guide for more information on being
included in editorial results. Paid listings come from Google AdWords,
described above.
Search Engine Watch members
have access to the How
Ask Jeeves Works page, which provides links to more in-depth
coverage of how Ask Jeeves-owned Teoma gathers listings.
The sites below are "major" in the sense that
they either still receive significant amounts of traffic or they've
earned a reputation in the past that still causes some people to
consider them to be important. For various reasons explained below, they
are not among our top search choices. However, certainly feel free to
try them. They could turn out to be top choices for you.
AltaVista
http://www.altavista.com
AltaVista opened in December 1995 and for several years was the
"Google" of its day, in terms of providing relevant results
and having a loyal group of users that loved the service.
Sadly, an attempt to turn AltaVista into a portal site in 1998 saw
the company lose track of the importance of search. Over time, relevancy
dropped, as did the freshness of AltaVista's listings and the crawler's
coverage of the web.
Today, AltaVista is once again focused on search. Results come from
Yahoo, and tabs above the search box let you go beyond web search to
find images, MP3/Audio, Video, human category listings and news results.
If you want a lighter-feel than Yahoo but to still have Yahoo's results,
AltaVista is worth considering.
AltaVista was originally owned by Digital, then taken over by Compaq,
when that company purchased Digital in 1998. AltaVista was later spun
off into a private company, controlled by CMGI. Overture purchasing
the search engine in April 2003, then it later became part of Yahoo when
Yahoo bought Overture.
Gigablast
http://www.gigablast.com
Compared to Google, Yahoo or even Teoma, Gigablast has a tiny index
of the web. However, the service is constantly gaining new and
interesting features. Give it a whirl, if you want to try something
experimental yet dependable. Read more about Gigablast in this recent interview
from our SearchDay newsletter.
LookSmart
http://www.looksmart.com
LookSmart is primarily a human-compiled directory of web sites. It
gathers its listings in two ways. Commercial sites pay to be listed in
its commercial categories, making the service very much like an
electronic "Yellow Pages." However, volunteer editors at the
LookSmart-owned Zeal
directory also catalog sites into non-commercial categories for free.
Though Zeal is a separate web site, its listings are integrated into
LookSmart's results.
LookSmart launched independently in October 1996, was backed by
Reader's Digest for about a year, and then company executives bought
back control of the service.
LookSmart also bought the WiseNut crawler-based
search engine in April 2002. WiseNut's are offered through the LookSmart
via its Web tab above the search box. Unlike its competitors, the
WiseNut crawler has often been out of date, sometimes for months at a
time.
Finally, the real gem at LookSmart can be found via its Articles tab.
That provides access to content from thousands of periodicals.
Getting Listed: Read the Submitting
To LookSmart section of Search Engine Watch's Essentials
Of Search Engine Submission guide for more information on being
included in its free non-commercial listings. See the LookSmart
Paid Listings section for information about cost-per-click
commercial listings.
Search Engine Watch members
have access to the How
LookSmart Works page, which has in-depth coverage of how LookSmart
gathers listings.
Lycos
http://www.lycos.com
Lycos is 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 provides access to human-powered results from LookSmart for
popular queries and crawler-based results from Yahoo for others.
"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.
Lycos is owned by Terra
Lycos, a company formed with Lycos and Terra Networks merged in
October 2000. Terra Lycos also owns the HotBot search engine described above.
Getting Listed: For the main editorial listings at Lycos, you
need to be listed with AllTheWeb.com, which is described above
on this page. Paid listings come from Overture, described below,
and additional paid listings come from Terra Lycos's own program, as
described in this
article.
Search Engine Watch members
have access to the How
Lycos Works page, which provides in-depth coverage of how Lycos
integrates listings from its search providers.
MSN Search
http://search.msn.com
Formerly one of Search Engine Watch's top choices, MSN Search is
definitely one to watch. The service was previously powered by LookSmart
results and gained top marks for having its own team of editors that
monitored the most popular searches being performed to hand-pick sites
believed to be the most relevant. The system worked well.
Today, MSN Search is in transition. It provides access to Yahoo
listings but not as much functionality in terms of other types of
searches that you'll find at Yahoo itself. However, MSN is developing
its own crawler-based technology and planning other
changes that should revitalize the service in later 2004.
Getting Listed: You need to be listed with Yahoo and Overture,
which are described further above
on this page.
Search Engine Watch members
have access to the How
MSN Search Works page, which provides in-depth coverage of how MSN
integrates listings from its search providers and its own editors.
Netscape Search
http://search.netscape.com
Owned by AOL Time Warner, Netscape Search uses Google for its main
listings, just as does AOL's other major search site, AOL Search. So why
use Netscape Search rather than Google? Unlike with AOL Search, there's
no compelling reason to consider it. The main difference between
Netscape Search and Google is that Netscape Search will list some of
Netscape's own content at the top of its results. Netscape also has a
completely different look and feel than Google. If you like either of
these reasons, then try Netscape Search. Otherwise, you're probably
better off just searching at Google.
Getting Listed: Netscape essentially duplicates the editorial
and ad listings that are shown on Google, so you need to be listed with
Google in one of these ways, as described above
on this page.
Open Directory
http://dmoz.org/
The Open Directory uses volunteer editors to catalog the web.
Formerly known as NewHoo, it was launched in June 1998. It was acquired
by AOL Time Warner-owned Netscape in November 1998, and the company
pledged that anyone would be able to use information from the directory
through an open license arrangement.
While you can search at the Open Directory site itself, this is not
recommended. The site has no "backup" results that kick in
should there not be a match in the human-compiled database. In addition,
the ranking of sites during keyword searching is poor, while
alphabetical ordering is used when you choose to "browse"
categories by topic.
Instead, to scan the valuable information compiled by the Open
Directory, consider using the version offered by Google, the Google
Directory. Here, keyword searching uses Google's refined relevancy
algorithms and makes use of link analysis to better propel good pages
from the human database to the top. In addition, when viewing sites by
category, they will be listed in PageRank
order, which means the most popular sites based on analyzing links from
across the web will be listed first.
Getting Listed: Read the Submitting
To The Open Directory section of Search Engine Watch's Essentials
Of Search Engine Submission guide for more
information.
Search Engine Watch members
have access to the How
The Open Directory Works page, which provides in-depth coverage of
how the Open Directory gathers listings.
More Search Engine Lists
Still looking for more search engines? Consider these options:
Other
Global Search Engines
Other services that cover the world. They may not be as popular or
well-known as the services above, but they may still be helpful
Community-Based
Search Engines
Places where volunteers are involved in the listing process
Guides
To Search Engines
Lists places that themselves list hundreds of search engines worldwide.
Where
Are They Now? Search Engines We've Known & Loved
The Search Engine Report, March 4, 2003
Not a list of search engines but some additional past history about
the major players above and former major search engines that have faded
in glory or disappeared entirely, over time.
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