Major Search Engines

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 "tabs" 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, scan through human-compiled information provided from the Open Directory (see below) or locate news information Also offered, though not through tabs, is catalog searching and product searching. Main Results from Own Crawler, paid results from Google. Directory Listings from Open Directory. More Search Engine Info

Yahoo Yahoo originated in 1994 in a campus trailer at Stanford University by two Electrical Engineering Ph.D. candidates "as a way to keep track of their personal interests on the Internet". Yahoo! is the Internet's oldest Directory. Began charging for a commercial listing in 11/01. Primary Results from Yahoo Search!. Category results from own Editors using Directory Links. Sponsored links by Overture. More Search Engine Info

AllTheWeb An excellent crawler-based search engine, All The Web provides both comprehensive coverage of the web and outstanding relevancy. If you tried Google and didn't find it, All The Web should probably be next on your list. Indeed, it's a first stop search engine, for some. In addition to web page results, AllTheWeb.com provides the ability to search for news stories, pictures, video clips, MP3s and FTP files. Until recently, AllTheWeb.com was 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 in late April 2003. It no longer has a connection with FAST. AlltheWeb is soon to be powered by Yahoo! Sponsored links by Overture. More Search Engine Info

AOL Anywhere AOL Search provides users with editorial listings from 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. Listings from Google. Directory listings from The Open Directory Project. Paid listings by Google. White Page listings by Infospace. More Search Engine Info

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 uses crawler-based results provided by AllTheWeb. "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. At the top of the page, Lycos will suggest other searches related to your original topic right under the search box. Perhaps you might even like the look and feel better! Whatever the reason, under the hood, Lycos provides all the same relevancy and comprehensiveness you'll find at AllTheWeb.com. Listings from Fast & from the Lycos Network. Directory listings from The Open Directory Project. Sponsored Sites from Overture. More Search Engine Info

HotBot is owned by Lycos. Launched 5/96. Paid Listing via Lycos InSite Program. This service will include your site in both the Fast and Inktomi databases.HotBot provides easy access to the web's four major crawler-based search engines: AllTheWeb.com/FAST, Google, Inktomi and Teoma, all of which are described elsewhere on this page. 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. The "4-in-1" option at HotBot 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. Results from Fast, Google, Inktomi & Teoma. Sponsored links by Lycos. More Search Engine Info

Excite closed down on 12/01 and was acquired by Infospace. Powered by Yahoo. Paid listings from Overture, Find What & Sprinks. Directory Listings from The Open Directory Project, About & Looksmart. More Search Engine Info

AltaVista is the oldest crawler-based search engine on the web. It 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. Improvements have been made, but crawlers such as Google and AllTheWeb provide more comprehensive results. Because of this, AltaVista is probably a third-choice crawler, one to try if you haven't found what you are looking for at one of its competitors. AltaVista does remains strong is in terms of some of the specialty searching it offers. It provides a good image search service, and you can look for video and audio clips, as well. It also has an outstanding news search service. Directory Listings from The Open Directory Project. Paid Links sold by Overture. More Search Engine Info

Microsoft's MSN Search has its own team of editors that monitor the most popular searches being performed and then hand-picks sites that are believed to be the most relevant. After performing a search, "Popular Topics" shown below the search box on the results page are also suggestions built largely by editors to guide you into making a more refined search. When appropriate, search results may also feature links to encyclopedia content from Microsoft Encarta or news headlines, at the top of the page. Main Results from Own Editors, then Yahoo. Sponsored links by Overture. More Search Engine Info

The Open Directory 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. More Search Engine Info

Ask Jeeves 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. Ask Jeeves also owns the Direct Hit service, but results from Direct Hit are no longer offered to the public directly through the Direct Hit site. "Ask" links from own Editors. Paid Listings by Google. Crawler-based results from Ask Jeeves-owned Teoma. Directory listings from the Open Directory Project. More Search Engine Info

Netscape Search 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. Listings from Google. Directory listings from The Open Directory Project. Sponsored search Results from Google AdWords. More Search Engine Info

LookSmart LookSmart is a human-compiled directory of web sites. The company does operate its own web site, but this really isn't intended for the public to use. Instead, similar to Inktomi, LookSmart provides its results to other search engines that need listings. LookSmart 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. Main Results from Own Editors. Secondary results from Zeal. More Search Engine Info 

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, AllTheWeb.com, Inktomi and AltaVista. 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. Main Results from own Database. Sponsored links from Google. More Search Engine Info

Inktomi Among the major search engines, Inktomi is the second-oldest crawler. It briefly operated as an experimental search engine at UC Berkeley. However, the creators then formed their own company in 1996 with the same name and gained their first customer, HotBot, in the middle of that year. The company then pursued a strategy of "powering" other search engines, rather than running its own branded service for the public. Today, Inktomi continues to crawl the web. The company had been left behind by rivals Google and AllTheWeb.com in terms of comprehensiveness, but changes made in the summer of 2002 made it much more competitive. It was purchased by Yahoo in March 2003. More Search Engine Info

Backed by US television network CBS, iWon was Launched 10/99. iWon gives away daily, weekly and monthly prizes in a marketing model unique among the major services. It launched in Fall 1999.  Main Results from Google. Featured listings from Overture. More Search Engine Info

Overture Formerly called GoTo until late 2001, Overture is an extremely popular paid placement search engine that provides ads to many of the search engines listed above. While Overture has traditionally been a paid listings provider, the company is expanding into offering crawler-based editorial results. Powered by Yahoo. More Search Engine Info