| Search
-- Search Engines |
| Altavista
-- one of the largest search engines, many options, tips; offers a number
of features designed to appeal to basic users, such as "Ask AltaVista" results,
which come from Ask Jeeves |
| Excite
-- one of the most popular search services on the web; offers a medium-sized
index and integrates non-web material such as company information and sports
scores into its results |
| Go / Infoseek
-- offers portal features such as personalization and free e-mail, plus
the search capabilities of the former Infoseek search service, which has
now been folded into Go; searchers will find that Go consistently provides
quality results in response to many general and broad searches, thanks to
its ESP search algorithm; also has an impressive human-compiled directory
of web sites |
| FAST Search
-- FAST Search aims to index the entire web; was the first search engine
to break the 200 million web page index milestone; formerly known as All
The Web |
| HotBot
-- large index of the web and many power searching features |
| Northern
Light -- one of the favourite search engine
among researchers; it features one of the largest indexes of the web, along
with the ability to cluster documents by topic; also has a set of "special
collection" documents that are not readily accessible to search engine spiders;
there are documents from thousands of sources, including newswires, magazines
and database;.searching these documents is free, but there is a charge of
up to $4 to view them; there is no charge to view documents on the public
web |
| Ask Jeeves
-- a human-powered search service that aims to direct you to the exact page
that answers your question; if it fails to find a match within its own database,
then it will provide matching web pages from various search engines |
| Direct Hit
-- a company that works with other search engines to refine their results;
it does this by monitoring what users click on from the results they see;
sites that get clicked on more than others rise higher in Direct Hit's rankings;
the service dubs itself a "popularity engine" |
| GoTo
-- GoTo sells its listings; companies can pay money to be placed higher
in the search results, which GoTo feels improves relevancy; non-paid results
come from Inktomi |
| Google -- a search
engine that makes heavy use of link popularity as a primary way to rank
web sites; this can be especially helpful in finding good sites in response
to general searches such as "news" and "online shopping," because users
across the web have in essence voted for good sites by linking to them |
| WebCrawler
-- has the smallest index of any major search engine on the web; the small
index means WebCrawler is not the place to go when seeking unusual material;
some people may feel that by having indexed fewer pages, WebCrawler provides
less overwhelming results in response to general searches |
| Netscape Search
-- Netscape Search's results come primarily from the Open Directory and
Netscape's own "Smart Browsing" database, which does an excellent job of
listing "official" web sites; secondary results come from Google |
| MSN Search --
Microsoft's MSN Search service is a LookSmart-powered directory of web sites,
with secondary results that come from AltaVista |
| AOL Search --
AOL Search allows its members to search across the web and AOL's own content
from one place; the "external" version does not list AOL content; the main
listings for categories and web sites come from the Open Directory and Inktomi |
| RealNames --
the RealNames system is meant to be an easier-to-use alternative to the
current web site addressing system; in RealNames-enabled browsers you can
enter a word like "Nike" to reach the Nike web site |
| ZAP
-- the web's remote control; featuring thousands of quality links, free
service, chats, principal search engines and more; ZAP is a very useful
tool to reach directly the greatest sites; personalize ZAP as you like;
net events, movies, health and more than 60 different categories available;
an interactive atlas, many chats and forums, online translators, making
ZAP a very useful tool to explore the web while having fun |
