Search Engines
Search Engines vs. Directories
Search engines, such as AltaVista, create their listings automatically.
Search engines crawl through the web. Search engines eventually find your
site and index the pages they find. Page titles, body text, META
tags and other elements all play a role in what gets indexed. People
then search the index of what was found.
A directory such as Yahoo depends on human editors to create its listings.
You submit a description of your site to the directory for editors to
review. A good site, with good content, will be more likely to get reviewed
than a poor site. A search of Yahoo looks for matches only in the editors
descriptions.
Some search engines use a hybrid of a crawler and an associated directory.
Being included in a search engine's directory is a combination of luck
and quality. Submitting your site for review is no guarantee that it will
be included in the directory. Reviewers have the final say in who is included
in their directory. They often search the Internet on their own looking
for good sites to add to the directory.
Search Engine Elements
The three major elements or a search engines are: the spider, also called
the crawler; the index or catalog; and the search engine which displays
the results of your query in your browser.
The spider visits your web page, indexes it, and then follows links to
other pages within the site. This is sometimes referred to as being "spidered"
or "crawled." The spider returns to the site every month or two, to look
for changes.
The index is a giant database that contains a copy of every web page
that the spider finds. When a web page is changed, then this database
is updated with the new information.
Sometimes it takes a while for pages or changes to be added to the index.
Therefore, a web page may have been "spidered" but not yet "indexed."
Until it is added to the index, it is not available to searches by the
search engine.
Search engine software sifts through the millions of pages recorded in
the index to find matches to a query and ranks them in the order of what
it believes is most relevant. Different search engines often produces
different results.
Search Engine Tips
If you have a general subject in mind (like "coins"), type the word or
words in the Search box and click the Search button. Results are usually
listed in order of relevancy based on keywords and other factors.
Advanced Search Features
If you know exactly what you want, you can get better results by entering
very specific information into the Search box. Despite differences in
each search engine's tools, there are tools that many search engines have
in common.
- Searching for an Exact Phrase
- To require that an entire phrase be found in a search,enter quotes
(" ") around the terms. For example, "giants
baseball" returns listings where the words "giants"
and "baseball" appear together and in
that order, either in the title, the URL of the Web site, the description,
the keywords, or the document. If no sites are found that contain both
terms, sites that contain either term will be displayed.
-
- Searching For Required Words
- You can type the plus sign (+)
or the word AND before a word to
require that it be found in all of the search results. For example,
giants +baseball (include a space
between the first word and the + symbol) or giants
AND baseball returns all listings that contain "baseball"
and "giants" but not necessarily together.
-
- Searching For Excluded Words
- Use the minus sign (-) before
a word or the word NOT to require
that it not be found in the search results. For example, giants
-baseball (include a space between the first word and the
- symbol) or giants NOT baseball lists
sites containing "giants" but not "baseball."
Some engines like AND NOT (two words)
or ANDNOT (one word) better than
just NOT.
-
- Searching For Multiple Words
- Use the word OR to require
that one or the other term be found in the search results. For example,
giants OR baseball (include a space
on each side of the OR) lists sites containing "giants"
or "baseball." You can combine AND,
OR, AND NOT by using parentheses.
For example, to find documents that contain the word giants
but not either the word baseball or football
type giants NOT (baseball OR football).
You could also type this giants -(baseball
OR football). Note: You cannot begin a search with a "-"
term. You must put some other search term first.
-
- Using Wildcards
- You can use the asterisk (*) character
to indicate a wildcard search. This is useful when you are trying to
match a term that may or may not be plural or might use one of several
verb tenses. For example chemi*
will find results containing words that begin with 'chemi' (e.g. chemical,
chemistry, chemist). You must have at least four non-wildcard
characters in a word before you introduce a wildcard. This is not necessary
for plurals because a search on cat
will also return results containing the word cats,
and a search on cats will return
results containing the word cat.
Some search engines support two wildcards. The asterisk (*)
is used to replace multiple characters and the percent (%)
symbol is used to replace only one character. For example psych*ist
will find all results which contain words that begin and end
with 'psych' and 'ist' (e.g. psychologist, psychiatrist),
and gene%logy will return sites
containing words beginning with 'gene' and ending with 'logy,' separated
by a single letter (e.g. genealogy and geneology)
which is useful for commonly misspelled words. You can also use
multiple wildcards within a single word.
Major Search Engines
- AOL
NetFind - An Inktomi-powered search engine
used by AOL users. Uses listings from the Open
Directory. Click here for more
information.
- AltaVista
- In terms of pages indexed, AltaVista is one of the largest search
engines on the web. It has very comprehensive coverage and a wide
range of power searching commands, which make it a particular favorite
among researchers. Click
here for more information.
- Ask
Jeeves - A human-powered search service that attempts to
direct you to the exact page that answers your question. If it fails
to find a match within its own database, then it will provide web pages
from various other search engines. Results from Ask Jeeves also appear
within AltaVista. Here's more
information.
- Direct
Hit - A company that works with other search engines to refine their
results. Sites that get clicked on more than others rise higher in Direct
Hit's rankings. Direct Hit's technology is also used by HotBot
and Lycos and is available as an option at LookSmart
and MSN Search. DirectHit also crawls the web and refines its database.
Direct Hit's People Powered Search Engine tracks the sites people
actually select from search results and the amount of time spent at
those sites. By analyzing the activity of millions of previous Internet
searchers, Direct Hit determines the most relevant sites for any search
request. Aimed at the general consumer seeking information through web
search, Direct Hit provides users with the most relevant results for
any Internet search. More information on the Direct
Hit spider is here.
- Excite
- One of the most popular search services on the web. Excite
offers a medium-sized index and integrates non-web material into its
results, when appropriate. Launched in late 1995, Excite quickly grew
and acquired two of its competitors, Magellan in July 1996, and WebCrawler
in November 1996. Both continue to run as separate services.
- FAST
Search - Formerly called All The Web, FAST Search aims to index
the entire web. It was the first search engine to index 200 million
web pages.
- Go/Infoseek
- This portal site produced by Infoseek and Disney offers the search
capabilities of the former Infoseek search service. It uses an impressive
human-compiled directory of web sites to provide quality results in
response to many general and broad searches. Here's the web page
where you add
URLs to Infoseek. You can also become a GO
Guide and help to map out the web for others.
- GoTo
- Unlike other search engines (except for AltaVista),
GoTo sells its listings. Companies can pay money to be placed
higher in the search results, which GoTo feels improves relevancy. Non-paid
results come from Inktomi. Here's all about
GoTo.
- Google
- A search engine that makes heavy use of link popularity as
a primary way to rank web sites. This can be especially helpful in finding
good sites in response to general searches such as "cars" and "travel,"
because users across the web have in essence voted for good sites by
linking to them. More information about
Google is here.
- HotBot
- Like AltaVista, HotBot is another favorite
among researchers due to its large index of the web and many power
searching features. In most cases, HotBot's first page of results
comes from the Direct Hit service (see above),
and then secondary results come from the Inktomi
search engine, which is also used by other services. It gets its
directory information from the Open
Directory project (see below). HotBot is owned by Wired
Digital, a Lycos
Network Member.
- Inktomi
- The Inktomi index powers several services. All of them tap into the
same index, though results may be slightly different. This is because
Inktomi provides ways for its partners to use a common index yet distinguish
themselves. There is no way to query the Inktomi index directly,
as it is only made available through Inktomi's partners with whatever
filters and ranking tweaks they may apply. Here's more information about
Inktomi.
- LookSmart
- Another human-compiled directory of the web. In addition to
being a stand-alone service, LookSmart provides directory results to
AltaVista and many other partners. AltaVista
provides LookSmart with search results when a search fails to find a
match from among LookSmart's reviews. Here's more information
about LookSmart.
- Lycos
- Their main listings come from the Open Directory
project, and then secondary results come from spidering the web. Lycos
also features another directory of web sites called Lycos
Community Guides. Sites are automatically listed in these guides
using technology from WiseWire, a company Lycos acquired in early 1998.
Lycos is one of the oldest search services, around since May 1994. Here's
more
information on Lycos and the Lycos
Network .
- MSN
Search - Microsoft's MSN Search service is powered by Inktomi.
On the MSN portal site, other search engines are also featured, along
with directory results. Here's information on their Advanced
Search Features.
- Netscape
Search - Netscape Search's results come primarily from the Open
Directory and Netscape's own "Smart Browsing" database, which
does an excellent job of listing "official" web sites. Secondary results
come from Google. At the Netscape Netcenter portal
site, other search engines are also featured. Here's a FAQ about
searching with Netscape Navigator.
- Northern
Light - Another favorite search engine among researchers. It features
the largest index of the web, along with the ability to cluster documents
by topic. Northern Light also has a set of "special
collection" documents that are not readily accessible to
search engine spiders. There are documents from thousands of sources,
including newswires, magazines and databases. Searching these documents
is free, but there is a charge of up to $4 to view them. There is no
charge to view documents on the public web -- only for those within
the special collection. Here's more information about
Northern Light.
- Open
Directory - Uses volunteer
editors to catalog the web. It was acquired by Netscape
in November 1998, and the company pledged that anyone would be able
to use information from the directory through an open license arrangement.
Netscape itself was the first licensee. Lycos also
uses the information for its main service and within Lycos-owned HotBot.
Here's information about
Open Directory.
- Snap
- Another human-compiled directory of web sites, supplemented by
search results from Inktomi. Like LookSmart,
it aims to challenge Yahoo as the champion of categorizing the web.
Here's some more information about
Snap.
- WebCrawler
- Has the smallest index of any major search engine on the web
-- think of it as Excite Lite. The small index
means WebCrawler is not the place to go when seeking obscure or unusual
material. However, some people may feel that by having indexed fewer
pages, WebCrawler provides less overwhelming results in response to
general searches. WebCrawler
Direct provides PC users an application, separate from your browser,
to search the Internet. Mac 8.5 and above users can use the system feature
called Sherlock to do the same thing.
- Yahoo
- The web's most popular search service has a well-deserved reputation
for helping people find information easily. It is the largest human-compiled
guide to the web, employing about 150 editors in an effort to categorize
the web. Yahoo has over 1 million sites listed. Yahoo also supplements
its results with those from Inktomi. Yahoo is
the oldest major web site directory, having launched in late 1994.
Try these alternatives
JotBot
Search began as an alternative interface to HotBot and grew to support
six major search engines: AltaVitsa, Yahoo, HotBot, DejaNews, Four11,
and UBL. Using a tiny JavaScripted input window, JotBot facilitates immediate
searches at speeds up to 10 times regular -- all by avoiding those large
front pages and skipping directly to the data.
The Business
Directory - Provides a business directory of sites in various categories.
Promote your site today.
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