Looking for search engines? This section of Search Engine Watch lists some top choices in various categories.
Major Search Engines and Directories
In the search engine list below, Search Engine Watch provides a guide to the major search engines of the web. Why are these considered to be "major" search engines? Because they are either well-known or well-used.
Top Choices
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Ask - http://www.ask.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.
Strongly Consider
1. 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.
2. AOL Search - http://aolsearch.aol.com/
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.
3. 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.
Other Choices
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Live Search - http://www.live.com/
Live Search (formerly Windows Live Search) is the name of Microsoft's web search engine, successor to MSN Search, designed to compete with the industry leaders Google and Yahoo. The search engine offers some innovative features, such as the ability to view additional search results on the same web page (instead of needing to click through to subsequent search result pages) and the ability to adjust the amount of information displayed for each search-result (i.e. just the title, a short summary, or a longer summary). It also allows the user to save searches and see them updated automatically on Live.com.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
Other Global Search Engines
1. About.com - http://www.about.com/
About.com, formerly the Mining Company, features hundreds of "guides" offering original content in various areas. While About.com isn't really a search service, the guides do have extensive links to other sites -- not to mention top-notch content of their own.
2. Britannica.com - http://www.britannica.com/
Links to top web sites and content from the Encyclopedia Britannica, in one place.
3. Excite - http://www.excite.com/
Excite results are dominated by paid listings from Overture, with non-paid results from Inktomi. Before Dec. 2001, Excite was a crawler-based search engine that gathered its own results. Excite was originally launched in late 1995. It grew quickly in prominence and consumed two of its competitors, Magellan in July 1996, and WebCrawler in November 1996. Magellan was discontinued in April 2001. WebCrawler continues to operate as a separate service, but it provides the same results at the Excite.com site itself. In Nov. 2001, Excite was acquired by InfoSpace, which also operates meta search engines Dogpile and MetaCrawler.
4. iWon - http://www.iwon.com/
iWon's results come from both Overture & Inktomi. iWon gives away daily, weekly and monthly prizes in a marketing model unique among the major services. It launched in Fall 1999.
5. WebWombat - http://www.webwombat.com.au/
Search engine which lists pages from sites within the .au (Australia) and .nz (New Zealand) domains. It also provides global coverage.
6. WebCrawler - http://www.webcrawler.com/
WebCrawler is essentially a copy of the Excite service, above. WebCrawler was originally a completely independent service, opened to the public on April 20, 1994. It was started as a research project at the University of Washington. America Online purchased it in March 1995 and was the online service's preferred search engine until Nov. 1996. That was when Excite, a WebCrawler competitor, acquired the service.
7. PepeSearch - http://www.pepesearch.com/
Uses search results from FAST
8. Aeiwi - http://www.aeiwi.com/
Not your normal search engine, Aeiwi has you click on words to build your search. Reading the instructions is a must, but they aren't long.
9. Links2Go - http://www.links2go.com/
A directory-style search engine that uses artificial intelligence techniques to cluster related topics and URLs together.
10. SearchKing - http://www.searchking.com/
A searchable directory of web sites that offers instant indexing of submitted web sites.
11. Qango.com - http://www.qango.com/
Directory of web sites.
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