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
WISEnut - offers a large database and a companion directory of topics related to a search
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; requires Flash or offers an HTML version
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
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
The InvisibleWeb - directory of over 10,000 databases, offering the option to search for the database you need, from IntelliSeek
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
Ditto - offers searches for images by word or phrase
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
