Subject: META -SEARCH ENGINES
Here is a compilation of 13 major META -SEARCH ENGINES by Jian Liu . Brief
discussion of search tips
and major features of each of them is provided. The complete article can
be downloaded from
URL: http://www.indiana.edu/~librcsd/search/meta.html .
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1.Ask Jeeves: http://www.askjeeves.com/ibrcsd/search/meta.html
Simple syntax; results presented in pull-down menus; number of matches
reported from each search engine; no
integration; no ranking; interesting design; fairly good response
time; limited number of search engines used.
2.Debriefing: http://www.debriefing.comibrcsd/search/meta.html
A new contender; searches AltaVista, Yahoo, Infoseek, Excite,
Webcrawler , Lycos and Hotbot in the English
version; its French version searches Yahoo France, PagesWeb, Ecila,
Infoseek France, Excite France and
Lokace; it supports boolean (+ -) and phrase searches (" "); collates
the results, ranks them and removes
duplicates; provides the most significant domain name for a search; in
the advanced search mode, it allows for
searches within a particular site (no need to provide a complete url)
3.Cyber411: http://cyber411.com/g.comibrcsd/search/meta.html
Searches up to 16 search engines, including Northern Light; excellent
user selection options - from one to all;
supports boolean and phrase searches; only titles and urls of web
pages are returned; no summary; no number of
hits report; duplicate URLs are removed; response time is fairly good.
4.Dogpile: http://www.dogpile.com/omibrcsd/search/meta.html
Relatively new; searches Web sites, Usenet, FTP sites and newswires
(25 in all); for first time users, start with
"Custom Search" where one can set the order and the number of the 25
search engines so that results from one's
favorite sites return first, and/or exclude certain sites (skip) from
the search engine list, a very handy feature; timeout
can be set from ten to 60 seconds; it searches three sites at a time
and if there are enough results (ten hits), the
search will stop, otherwise it will continue on to the next three
sites. Ten records from each of the three sites will be
displayed. Further hits from the three sites can be retrieved with a
click, and the next three sites can be searched
with a click as well. Search results are displayed with summaries;
number of hits from each site is reported;
Boolean searches are supported; response time is very good; no
integration of results. See also MetaFind below.
This is a highly recommended site for its large number of sites
covered, for its flexibility, and for its good response
time.
5.Highway 61: http://www.highway61.com/ibrcsd/search/meta.html
Searches only Yahoo, Lycos, Webcrawler, Infoseek and Excite (used to
search AltaVista as well); AND and OR
searches; number of hits from each site is reported; results displayed
with summaries; sites coming from most
search engines are ranked higher; interesting way of presenting
options: timeout period is presented as "Your
patience level." I like the developer's sense of humor in admitting
that "this is not an exact science" when referring to
how many hits a search should return. Response time leaves much room
for improvement.
6.Inference Find: http://www.inference.com/infind/search/meta.html
Currently configured to search Yahoo, AltaVista, Lycos, Webcrawler,
Infoseek and Excite; it "merges the results,
removes redundancies, and clusters the results into neat
understandable groupings." The last is a unique feature that
puts "similar items together." It calls InfoSeek three times in
parallel in order to retrieve 30 records from it. Timeout
period can be set between one second and 30 seconds. Title display
only. Response time is moderate. French and
German interfaces added recently.
7.Internet Sleuth: http://www.isleuth.com/m/infind/search/meta.html
One of the largest collections of searchable sites, divided into
several major categories: Web search engines and
directories, reviewed sites, news, business and finance, software and
Usenet; very flexible selection of search
engines to be included (Hold Ctrl key to select multiple databases,
Shift key to select a range). Maximum search
time can be set between ten seconds and two minutes (used to be five);
no integration of results; display of search
results can be customized to show titles only or titles with
summaries; number of results from each site can range
from ten to 100; convenient arrangements for retrieving more records
from individual search engines; response time
is moderate.
8.Mamma: http://www.mamma.com/m/m/infind/search/meta.html
Searches the Web, Usenet, news, stock symbols, company names, MP3
files, pictures and sound; supports
optional phrase searches and searches limited to titles only;
optionally shows summaries; Boolean operators can be
used (+ and -). It claims to present results in a uniform format by
relevance and source. A limited number of search
engines is supported: AltaVista, Excite, Infoseek, Lycos, WebCrawler,
and Yahoo. No arrangement for further
searches in the individual search engines. Response time is moderate.
9.MetaCrawler: http://www.metacrawler.com/find/search/meta.html
One of the earliest meta-search engines, purchased by go2net from
University of Washington. It is best to
customize it before using: set default interface (regular, power, or
low bandwidth); select the default Boolean
operators to be used (OR, AND, or as a phrase); may limit results from
Web pages from North America, Europe,
Asia, Australia, South America, Africa, Antarctica, or U.S.
educational, commercial or government sites; set
timeout period, and number of results from each source; or start with
power search where all the options can be set
before searching; results are displayed with summaries, integrated and
ranked; response time is fairly good; Web
search includes only the major search engines: Lycos, Infoseek,
WebCrawler, Excite, AltaVista, and Yahoo. Many
other types of databases have been added recently - computer products,
usenet, files, stock quotes.
This is another highly recommended site for its flexible
configuration, clean display of search results, and good
response time. For a quick search of the major search engines,
MetaCrawler should be considered the number one
meta-search engine.
10.MetaFind: http://www.metafind.com/om/find/search/meta.html
From the same company that produces Dogpile, Metafind searches six
search engines, returning links and
organizing the results. It retrieves ten links from AltaVista twice,
ten from Excite twice, 50 from HotBot, 25 from
Infoseek, 30 from Planetsearch, and 50 from Webcrawler. You can use
AND, OR, NEAR, NOT, ( ), and "" in
your search (no need to capitalize). AND is the default connector.
Timeout period can be set from ten to 60
seconds. Search results can be sorted by keyword, by domain,
alphabetically or not sorted. Also provided is the
indication of positioning of a site from individual search engines
(e.g. #7 in Excite, meaning that if the search is run
directly at Excite, that site should appear as the number 7 in the
search result. Description can be optionally
displayed. Rerun of the query terms in individual search engines is
very convenient from the search result pages.
Response time is fairly good. This is another highly recommended site
for its overall performance and for its
sorting capabilities.
11.ProFusion: http://profusion.ittc.ukans.edu/search/meta.html
Excellent options in search engine selection: one can choose the best
three, the fastest three, all or any of the
available search engines; Boolean and phrase searches are supported;
searches the Web or Usenet; search results
can be displayed with summaries or without; one can have up to 50
links of search results checked to make sure
they are live. Results are integrated and number of hits from each
search engine is reported; search terms can be
saved for future reruns (This feature seems to have disappeared).
Unfortunately, ProFusion tends to be very slow
in response time, but with recent address change, speed has
dramatically improved.
12.SavvySearch: http://guaraldi.cs.colostate.edu:2000/forma.html
Another pioneer of meta-search engines, rich with features and
including a great number of search engines, Usenet
groups, and many other specialized databases; Boolean operators (AND
and OR) and phrase searches are
supported; allows for setting the number of retrievals from each
search engine (from ten to 50); can display search
results in brief, normal and "verbose" formats; optional integration
of results. The most inclusive search is possible
by selecting all the available types of resources: Web indexes,
directories, Usenet, software, people, reference,
entertainment, commercial, academic, images, and technical reports.
Response time is poor.
13.Verio Metasearch: http://search.verio.net/tate.edu:2000/forma.html
The advanced query interface has a very powerful scoring feature,
allowing one to decide which individual search
engine's results carry more weight than others; maximum delay time can
be arbitrarily set; number of search results
can range from ten to all; returns the most meta-information about a
site, including relevance rank and score, and
number of search engines ranking a site in its top ten hits. Slow
response time.