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Search Engines Part 3
by By Terry Currier — NOCCC , tcurrier@aol.com - December 02, 2000 at 00:44:03:
A website that tests and reports on search engines is http://searchenginewatch.com/. It checks the number of indexes, finds, and relevant information, among other things. The latest rating puts Google.com, as having the largest index, Fast Search and AltaVista were fourth. I have noted some metasearch engines that I like. They are handy, but the times that I used them, I found that they take just the top listings. In throwing away some it seems are not relevant you may lose something you need. Most of the times, they do help, and it is certainly faster then going to each different search engine yourself. Here are two programs that act like metasearch engines going out and finding the information you requested. Both are free for downloading, but just so you are warned, they are ad supported.BullsEye—BullsEye version 2 at its most basic level, simultaneously sends your search words/phrases to several major search engines, weeds out duplicates, and ranks results according to relevance. You can also choose to validate and/or download the results to your computer. Select a find in the resulting hit list to view the page in the built-in browser window. For a better look, send it to your default browser. It provides 13 additional categories, including news, shopping, computers, and health. You can generate search reports as HTML or send them out as e-mail. As you browse search results, you can mark each as read or unread and choose to include/exclude each from your report. You can also save and manage your searches, manage Web browser bookmarks, refine existing searches, and send individual links as e-mail. You can have it analyze and download the found web pages. Doing so allows you to view the pages later and helps eliminate results not relevant to your search. As for whom it queries, you have a choice of over 20. You can download Bullseye free from Intelliseek. If you are familiar with the program WebSeeker, it looks and works just like it.
WebFerret—WebFerret is from ZD Net. It queries search engines to find whatever it is that you are looking for. It will query all configured search engines simultaneously, while discarding any duplicate results. It is weird to watch it query and see it go back and forth on getting the information. Be sure to set up the View/Options or you could be sorry. Its default search is to find up to 500 finds, and keep a history of what it finds. I knocked it down to 200 and had it not save the history (If I want it, I’ll save it or save the space.) It polls AltaVista, AOL NetFind, C/Net, EuroSeek, Excite, Google, GoTo, LookSmart, Lycos, Snap and ZDNet. It is good, but a bit slower then going to other metasearch sites or Bullseye. It says it will list the relevance of each site found, but it never did. It also could not find everything. Even those that I could find by going directly to the search engines. It could not find a church I was hunting for or handle a misspelling.
Direct Hit—http://www.directhit.com—Direct Hit looks at what people have researched before hand, and puts the most popular first. So, when I checked for the Winners User Group I went through 200 found sites and gave up before I found it. I know it does read aol.com addresses becauseit found them. But if you are going to be looking for something obscure that someone else may not look for, then you should go elsewhere. Looking for Leukemia information, it found just about everything but. First was the UAW Local 571, prop 571, cub pack 571 etc. Putting quotes around it did nothing. If you put a + before a word it will insure it looks for that word. Doing that if finally found the information I asked for. It also does not display the number of finds, or let you go from page eight of finds back to page four; you must keep hitting previous.
Intelliseek—http://www.intelliseek.com/ —Here is another metasearch site with the ability to search AltaVista, DirectHit, Excite, InfoSeek, Look Smart, Netscape, WebCrawler, and Yahoo. Like the other metasearch sites it won’t find everything. One feature I did like a lot was the ability to show all the found sites on one page. So if it found 70 sites, it would show them all on one page for me to just scroll down. Much easier than going through seven pages. On the left side, it lists the percent it feels relates to your query. They have a Web Tracker service, which monitors any specified Web page and automatically notifies you of changes by delivering e-mail reports to your computer or e-mail-enabled wireless device.
MetaCrawler—http://www.meta crawler.com/—MetaCrawler is a metasearch engine using AltaVista, DirectHit, Excite, FindWhat.com, Google, GoTo.com, Infoseek, Kanoodle, LookSmart, Lycos, RealNames, Sprinks, Thunderstone, and WebCrawler. It has no tips or help for users. It found almost everything, but it did not find St Andrews Presbyterian Church. It also did not find anything from AOL except the top layer. One funny thing with the Costa Mesa search, it found something on a report the CIA’s internal investigation into alleged connections between the CIA and contra drug trafficking. Don’t worry it was just a reporting to the police there.
Search.com—http://www.search.com —This could also be called C/Net search since it goes to their site. It’s a metasearch using more then 700 engines (it says) including Snap, Direct Hit, Yahoo, Lycos, GoTo, MySimon, Excite, AltaVista, and Inktomi. It displays the number of finds, but will not let you go from page eight of finds back to page four; you must keep hitting previous. They let you do a search within a search to help you weed out the unneeded. It has the usual break out of categories if you want to try them first. Also signup for newsletters, or check your horoscope.
Searchbug—http://www.searchbug.com —Powered by mamma.com, it’s a metasearch engine. It uses AltaVista, AskJeeves, Direct Hit, Excite, FineWhat, HotBot, Go.com, Google, GoTo, Lycos, MSN, Northern Light, Snap, and Yahoo. It does over 300 searches that are organized in 15 categories (PeopleFinder, Travel, etc.) listed on the left side. It does a good job, but not a great job of finding things. Although it gleans information from all those sites it doesn’t go deep enough. It didn’t find everything, but if you went to just use AltaVista alone, you would find it all. You can select to go directly to each of the above site through their links if you choose.
The Funky Cat—http://www.funkycat.com/—Cute name, but it was a find-nothing site. Too bad, since it has a nice setup. When it finds something you asked for it gives you the website and highlights the word so you can spot it easily. It doesn’t have a large listing.
Yeehaa—http://www.yeehaa.com/—It has buttons to click on for similar words, exact word, any of the words, or Boolean search. Regardless of what I chose for a search, it would break it up, and search on any and all of the words. Which makes it just about impossible to do a proper search. The Leukemia treatment STI 571 search (clicking on exact word) had hundreds of items for each word. Putting quotes or + in did not make a difference. The only help you get is if it finds nothing. It then list some tips of what to do.
Bullseye Webferret Intelliseek MetaCrawler Searchbug The Funky Cat yeehaa
Setup - cluttered site 9 8 8.5 8 0 7
Search within a search 8.5 0 0 0 0 0
relevant information 9.5 7 7 8.5 0 0
Found information 10 8 7 8.5 0 0
Tips for search 10 8 0 7 0 3 Eliminate duplicates 9.5 9 7.5 7 0 5
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