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.
Ten 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!

First, a word about Google

The Google search engine is not only ubiquitous, it is popular for a good reason... it is good
However, rest assured, it is not the only one. Several pretty good search engines have
died because of Google's popularity. Several new ones have also appeared in recent years, and so
please take my advice that if you don't find what you want in a few pages of one search engine
use another!

Altavista .. Google .. Yahoo .. Lycos .. MSN .. Ask Jeeves .. Dogpile .. Webcrawler .. Hotbot ..

There is a huge listing at Search Engine Guide where you can access a large number
of search engines.

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

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.

Google
Originally, Google's search was 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. Orignally, there were no advertisements
But now that Google is making money, they do it in a very clever way.
They sponsor sites which appear on the far right column. These sites are
chosen to match criteria of your search. Sometimes they do, and as far
as this technology goes, Googel is one of the best at delivering commercial
sites which are tuned to your search
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

Yahoo
Yahoo purchased a very powerful search engine a few years ago, and is one of the
strongest competitors to Google. In addition to being an 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.
Try this: Waveguide amateur
You may notice that although the first result is the same as Google, the rest are not.
Graphics: Because this is a general portal site and not just a search engine
The graphics are busy, cluttered, and somewhat confusing. However, the search bar
is right on top, and so, as a search engine it is easy to use.

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
Their sponsored items come first, which might be what you want, but likely are not
and the WA1MBA page, which years ago was the first response is now at least number
three, with sponsored pages coming before WA1MBA in the web responses!
Graphics: A vastly improved visual interface from a few years ago
Now the Lycos site has subtle purples and other pleasing colors

MSN
A very big entry in to the internet news, and an ISP, MSN has developed a web serach,
and other search capability which is acting very competitive. What would you expect from Microsoft?
This is one of the engines that is being heavily promoted (marketed) with agreements
that position it to look as good as Google, but in my opinion, they are not.

Ask Jeeves
Ask Jeeves, also called ASK, has a history of being able to understand English questtions.
It will ocassionally give some websites that Google and others will not.
I find that it is rather good at answering questions about how things work, or
how to use equations, or what is a particular circuit.
Try this: What are conic sections?
It has recently become much more commercial showing featured websites often with no
relavence coming up first. This "in your face" advertising for irrelevant junk
is much worse than the Google side bar with its irreelvant junk advertisments.
This is a dissapointment, because Jeeves is otherwise a very strong and useful site
that does a lot more than the others at answering questions.

Dogpile
This is a multiple search system. It will search Google, Yahoo, MSN and ASK.
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.
Dogpile, like other engines has other types of searchs that may be helpful
such as yellow and white phone books and reverse lookups.

Webcrawler
Another example of a multi search engine, Webcrawler used to be an actual
search engine, but is now just a way to search google, yahoo and MSN
This is an example of a search engine that Google's bigness killed.

Hotbot
Yet another serach engine that has gone away and now just gives you
a choice between MSN, Google and ASK.
Is somehow related to Lycos.

This page was last upadated on 6/25/06