Google has the largest database and is very adept at returning relevant results. Google uses mathematical formulas to rank a web page based on the number of "important" pages that link to it. The philosophy is that high-quality websites point to other high-quality websites. When a search is conducted, Google determines the websites that meet the search criteria and then lists the most popular sites among high-quality resources at the top of the list.
Alexa Web
Search - returns results powered by Google
with additional information including traffic ranking, number
of links to page, ownership and links to related pages of interest
AllTheWeb
- returns results quickly from an extremely large database;
offers multimedia and FTP searches; also returns categorized
topics to further focus a search
AltaVista
- searches Web sites and Usenet newsgroups with advanced Boolean
and field search options. See also:
AOL Search
- engine that defaults to AND logic and offers an Options template
for easy search construction; has an option to view results
by popularity; offers a directory based on the Open
Directory
Ask - submit
questions in plain English and view suggested relevant sites;
also offers the Open
Directory ranked in order of popularity
dictionaries, encyclopedias, financial databases, news, user
links, and more
Google
- ranks pages by the number of links from pages ranked high
by the service, including results from the Open
Directory Project. See also:
Google
Groups, Google's rendering of Deja.com's newsgroup archive
Google
Search: Unclesam, a searchable database of U.S. government
Web sites (.gov and .mil) ranked by link popularity
HotBot
- offers easy form-based Boolean, field, and media search options;
includes its channel content with the results for searches on
broad or popular terms; clusters results by presenting one hit
per site
iLOR -
presents results from other search services and offers options
to view and manipulate results in various ways. NOTE: options
are available when you hover your mouse over each results title
MSN Search
- derives results from a variety of sources, including the LookSmart
directory, Ask
Jeeves and others; applies concept matching to search statements;
and offers an advanced search option with form-based field searching
similar to HotBot
SearchEdu.com
- service that limits results to the .edu, domain; also offers
to search well-known dictionaries, encyclopedias, almanacs,
etc. See also:
Thunderstone
Website Index - search thousands of sites (vs. Web pages)
from a continuously updated database; adds 25,000 sites per
week
Teoma
- returns results in three sections: popularity-ranked Web pages
based on the number of same-subject pages that reference them;
suggested terms to refine a search; and link collections created
by topic experts
Retrieve Collated Results (limited number with
duplicates removed)
Chubba
- search the Web, a dictionary/thesaurus and encyclopedia
Copernic
- client software that searches multiple engines and directories,
removes duplicates and dead links, highlights search terms in
your results, and offers a variety of search and retrieval options
GenieKnows
- searches 25+ engines and directories and ranks results based
on the number of sources listing a page; chooses sources to
search based on consumer input; also offers searches of multimedia
types
Infonetware
- categorizes search results into component subtopics with options
to select multiple topics for a new set of topics and a filtered
results list
Ithaki
- searches engines, directories, and also numerous deep Web
sources
Ixquick
- search engines, directories, news and MP3 files; ranks results
based on top ten rankings from the source sites; allows any
type of search syntax and will translate and direct your search
accordingly
Kartoo
- categorizes content into relevant concepts and sites and displays
results on a graphical map
Mamma
- retrieve results in relevancy ranked order; power search offers
a user-friendly template for building a query
MetaCrawler
- retrieve results in relevancy ranked order; useful power search
available with a template of search options
METAEUREKA
- barebones interface for an engine that sorts results by relevancy
and offers a "Site info" link that returns information
on the server, date last modified, size, and descriptive information
if available
MetaMission
- searches several search services on the Web, and also offers
specialty searches of auctions, books, electronics, hardware
and software, jobs, multimedia, and Usenet News
Pandia Search
Central - searches multiple engines and directories and
also offers searches of news, books, music, videos and other
specialty databases; includes a searchable version of the Open
Directory
ProFusion - meta engine
that allows results to be sorted by relevance, title, URL and
source; offers a customizable Advanced
Search form for choosing the search services to search;
also offers topical searches on the deep Web
Query
Server - offers queries of the general Web, or health, money
or government sites and organizes results by concept, by site,
or by both
SurfWax
- offers options to see a quick view of sites in the search
results list to determine relevancy and choose alternative search
terms for a subsequent search from a thesaurus; offers personalization
options
Verio
Metasearch - retrieves the top ten hits from each source
engine and directory in combined ranked order
Researchville
- opens multiple browser windows with search results from the
originating search service; searchable categories includes news,
Web guides, reference, opinion and multimedia
Turbo10
- retrieves results from multiple sources (including a few deep
Web sources) and offers sorting by speed, relevance and source;
also offers concept clusters to organize results into keywords
and subtopics
Webtaxi
- use a helpful template to build search types and access your
results separately at each site; click on "Search"
button for numerous meta-search options
All-In-One
Search Page - compilation of search templates for an extensive
range of information retrieval
Beaucoup
- compilation of 2000+ engines and directories organized by
category; also offers a meta search capability
Lookoff
- offers a categorized collection of search services on the
Web; also allows you to query the collection and retrieve suggested
search services to use
SearchBug.com
- offers searches organized by topic, and searching of single
or multiple search services
Search
Engine Guide - topical collection of 3000+ engines, directories
and portals
SearchIQ
- categorized collection of engines and directories from the
SearchIQ search engine informational site
The so-called "deep" or "invisible" Web consists
of content stored in searchable databases mounted on the Web. These
databases usually cover a targeted topic or aspect of a topic. Search
engine spiders cannot or will not index this information. There
are a huge number of searchable databases on the Web. The following
is a selection of sites that collect searchable databases on the
Web.
Direct
Search - large compilation of links to the search interfaces
of a wide variety of research resources on the Web compiled
by Gary Price
Invisible-web.net
- searchable directory of quality databases on the Web compiled
by Chris Sherman and Gary Price as a companion to their book
The Invisible Web: Uncovering Information Sources Search
Engines Can't See
ProFusion
- meta engine that also offers searches of multiple "vertical
search sources" on the deep Web organized into topical
categories
Search.Com
- dozens of topic-based databases from CNet
Checkdomain.com
- search for the availability of a domain name in nearly every
country of the world
Clickey
- search for words contained in a domain name, or keywords contained
in a brief record, with options to limit searches to a country,
state and city
Namedroppers.com
- allows searches for domain names with multiple keywords and
the ability to limit to .com, .net, .org and .edu domains; results
link to the domain's Web site when available and to the InterNIC
Whois record
Registry
Whois Search - search the database of registered domain
names on the site of Network Solutions, the company that registers
many domain names
AltaVista
Photo Finder - searchable collection of multimedia on the
Web: search by media type: images, videos or audios
The
Amazing Picture Machine - searchable collection of a variety
of image types including architecture, animals, maps, artwork,
world leaders and more
Cobion
- offers searches of images by keywords, image filenames, and
Optical Character Recognition (OCR) scanned text in images;
also searches for people, image type and color/black & white
FindSounds.com
- searchable collection of sounds and sound effects on the Web,
with options to hear similar sounds, and to search for sounds
by mono/stereo, resolution, sample rate and file size
Picsearch
- offers image searching by word and phrase; also offers and
advanced search for animations/non-animations, color/black &
white, and size
Singingfish
- searches streaming content including music, movies, news,
radio, sports, television and finance
TimePix
- commercial site offering free access to more than 22 million
photos, prints and illustrations taken from popular Time-Life
magazines and the historical Mansell photograph collection;
registration required
Yahoo!
News Image Gallery - presents current news photos and a
searchable directory of archived news photos
Karnak
- searches hundreds of Web sites, stores the results online,
and e-mails you notification of the results; premium fee-based
service tracks additional queries and offers customization options
TracerLock
- saves your search query and tracks AltaVista for pages matching
your search terms; the first ten results are sent to you in
an e-mail
Agriculture Search Engines
