The face of internet search engines is constantly changing. I know that there
are hundreds of them out there, and probably a half dozen more really good
ones than I have listed below. Most of these bigger outfits are now offering
much more than search, such as email, their own content, etc.

In case you didn't know, the way these systems work is as follows:
A "Robot" or "Webcrawler" constantly scans internet sites for
information, links, content. This information is catalogued into a
giant database. When you make a search request, the database is
searched for relevant information, and the sites that match are presented.
Five years ago, nearly 100% of the sites were scanned by three or four robots
but now it is unlikely that any search engine has 50% of sites covered.

I give examples for each search engine. You should notice a different
set of results if the example is tried on a different engine.

For my own amusement and yours, I have rated the ones that I use, in order
of my typical priority, below. Have fun searching!

Altavista .. Google .. Lycos .. Infoseek .. Webcrawler ..

Hotbot .. Excite .. Yahoo .. Dogpile .. Copernic

There is a nearly complete listing of USA search engines where about 100 are
listed and rated. Below are my favorites with my comments.

Altavista
Altavista was developed by Digital Equipment Corporation, and only
recently managed to get the www.Altavista.com URL. They did some of the
pioneering work in ethical webcrawling, with their "scooter" web robot
and remain one of the best engines with one of the biggest databases
The lastest count indicates nearly a Billion Web pages and tens of thousands of Usenets.
Positives: has very wide coverage of topics, has an EXCELLENT advanced
search that is well worth learning - especially the use of quotation marks
and the + and the - sign. Not as many advertisements as some others.
Negatives: tends to get blasted by publishers so that you get far too many hits
from the same site, does not seem cover a lot of "content" sites very well
Try this: amateur radio microwaves
Graphics: Altavista has in the past had a rather pleasant interface,
with a mountain, and the use of light blues. Now they have made it more
modern, and have actually improved the colors, except that they are also
using that horrid orangish-yellow

Google
Positives: A completely different type of search, based entirely on how "Connected"
each site is. If there are more sites pointing to a site, then the site has a higher score.
The result is that you will find the things that more information specialists
think is more important or useful. So far there are NO ADVERTISEMENTS
Latest info 1.5 Billion pages, don't have a number for URLs.
Negatives: I often find that this approach leads to commercial
sites and internet publishing abuses, but as time has gone on it seems
that Google has dramatically improved. I am now using it early, and
sometimes first in my searches.
Try this: Waveguide amateur

Graphics: Graphics are almost non-existent. The interface is
refreshingly plain. It has indented sub-pages !!! this is unique
and quite helpful. Also there are "Cached" pages so that you can
look at the page without having to load it from the actual site.
This can be especially helpful if the site has recently changed.
Instead of getting "URL Not Found" or "ERROR 404" you get to
actually see the page as it was when it was scanned by Google

Northern Light
Northern Light used to be a free serach engine. It has gone completely
commercial, charging for their service. Perhaps it was too good to
be free. Anyway, it is no longer relavant to me or this discussion.
Positives: has very wide coverage of topics.
Negatives: Comercial, you must pay for the service

Lycos
Will come back with no sites at all if it doesn't have a satisfactory match.
This can be good if you don't want lots of irrelevant things, but it also
will miss things that other engines will return. If you don't succeed
on your first try with Lycos, go on to another search engine.
Positives: good brief descriptions, will come back with fewer irrelevant sites,
very subdued advertising.
Negatives: weak advanced searching, seemingly less broad coverage than others.
Try this: waveguide dimensions
Graphics: A thick black border produces visual imbalance when
placed on the top of any user interface, and they love to mix yellow
with black - yelch! - so they loose points in my book for violating
basic graphical sensibilities

Infoseek
One of the growing "GO NETWORK" - you can GO to ABC, ESPN and Disney directly
Positives: Great handling of English questions, phrases, probably the best display of
information with highlighted text, very small advertisements, has a "Search Within
These Results" which I find VERY helpful at times. Also tends to give
only one entry from a site which in some circumstances is VERY much
appreciated - this significantly reduces the effects of publisher blasting.
Also has "find similar pages" feature.
Negatives: Sometimes seems to miss the important sites, but seems to find those that
other engines miss. Weak advanced search , but they have recently made
some improvements in it.
Try this: RF connectors precision
Graphics: Just as with Lycos, thick black border produces
visual imbalance on the top of the interface, but different from
Lycos, Infoseek uses nice teal/green dividers and buttons.

Webcrawler
Positives: Very short descriptions, which can be helpful if you have to look at
loads of sites. Seemingly wide coverage although it misses some good ones.
No ads (just promos) when you enter, and during your search, just one banner
Negatives: Poor advanced search, doesn't seem to order sites very well.
Comment: This is apparently owned by Excite
Try this: Amateur Radio 10GHz
Note that W1GHZ page is NOT present, and that WA1MBA appears 2nd or 3rd.
Unfortunately, this same problem exists with most search engines.
I am glad that WA1MBA is there, but disappointed that W1GHZ is not on top.
Graphics: A subtle pumpkin colored banner is neutral & visual balance is
quite good. This is a very dense listing, focused just on search results as
links by titles

Hotbot
Positives: Somewhat lengthy descriptions, which result
in fewer fitting on your page. Pretty good reduction of multiple listings
Coverage seems quite good, normal level of advertising (one banner)
Up front advanced searching with easy to understand buttons.
Has LOADS of full text documents. Is now related to Lycos somehow.
Negatives: Offensive interface, see Graphics below
Long descriptions limit the number on a page, speed of downloading
Graphics: Unbeleivably bad color choices. Not just garish, but actually
difficult to use. Links are extra light blue, and leftside frame has a
muddy green background making the text hard to read. I don't know
who this is supposed to attract, but it repulses me.

Excite
A very big entry in to the "push technology" for delivering news, weather and stock reports,
they will even give you an email account.
For a search engine I have not had good luck, and hardly ever use Excite
Excite accesses 100's of Millions of Web pages

Yahoo
Another internet resource, Yahoo provides diverse capabilities such as news
clippings, email, travel, job search, community search. They have a map
system that lets you put in Latitude Longitude - used by some radio amateurs.
Their search engine is nothing special, and I don't find it particularly helpful
compared to others. They do, however, have a categorized search.

Dogpile
This is a multiple search system. It will search multiple search engines.
Personally, I find it worse than using an apropriate engine. This is
because your first 10 results from 5 engines are just as unlikely
to have your answer as the first 10 results from any particular engine,
whereas your first 50 results from 1 engine is more likely to have it.
To me, its a waste of time, but others seem to like it. Give it a try
and decide for yorself. (Thanks to Robin Midgett for this tip)

Copernic
This is software that you download. Like Dogpile, it will search multiple
search engines. In addition to multiple searches, it will organize the
results on your own computer. This might be a good approach for some
who make a practice of using multiple search engines to conduct a
search. (Thanks to Don Jackson for this tip)

My address is .

The home page for this page is WA1MBA.ORG

This page was last upadated on 4/18/02