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By
SearchEngineWatch.com
Staff
Updated:
Jan. 22, 2002
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Search
Engines and Directories
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For webmasters,
these services are the most important places to be listed,
because they can potentially generate so much traffic.
For searchers,
these well-known, commercially-backed search engines generally
mean more dependable results. These search engines are
more likely to be well-maintained and upgraded when necessary,
to keep pace with the growing web.
Not all
of the services below are "true" search engines
that crawl the web. For instance, Yahoo and the Open
Directory both are "directories" that depend on
humans to compile their listings. In fact, most of the
services below offer both search engine and directory information,
though they will predominately feature one type of results
over the other. See the How Search Engines Work page
to understand more about the difference between search engines
and directories.
For the
latest news and reviews about these services, be sure to sign-up
for one of our free newsletters! If you are looking
to get found via these search engines, then consider becoming
a Search Engine Watch member, to gain access to detailed information
about how they work.
AllTheWeb.com
(FAST Search)
AllTheWeb.com
(also known as FAST Search) consistently has one of the
largest indexes of the web. FAST also offers large
multimedia and mobile/wireless web indexes, available from
its site. The site, also known as AllTheWeb.com, is
a showcase for FAST's search technologies. FAST's
results are provided to numerous portals, including those
run by Terra Lycos. FAST Search launched in May 1999.
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AltaVista
AltaVista
is one of the oldest crawler-based search engines on the
web. It has a large index of web pages and a wide
range of power searching commands. It also offers
news search, shopping search and multimedia search.
AltaVista opened in December 1995. It was owned by
Digital, then run by Compaq (which purchased Digital in
1998), then spun off into a separate company which is now
controlled by CMGI.
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AOL
Search
AOL
Search allows its members to search across the web and AOL's
own content from one place. The "external"
version listed above, does not list AOL content. The
main listings for categories and web sites come from the
Open Directory (see below). Inktomi (see below) also
provides crawler-based results, as backup to the directory
information.
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Ask
Jeeves
Ask
Jeeves is a human-powered search service that aims to direct
you to the exact page that answers your question.
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Direct
Hit
Direct
Hit measures what people click on in the search results
presented at its own site and at its partner sites, such
as HotBot. Sites that get clicked on more than others
rise higher in Direct Hit's rankings. Thus, the service
dubs itself a "popularity engine." Aside
from running its own web site, Direct Hit provides the main
results which appear at HotBot (see below) and is available
as an option to searchers at MSN Search. Direct Hit
is owned by Ask Jeeves (above). Some Direct Hit information
appears at Ask Jeeves. See the Using Direct Hit Results
page to learn more about Direct Hit.
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Google
Google
is a top choice for web searchers. It offers the largest
collection of web pages of any crawler-based search engine.
Google makes heavy use of link analysis as a primary
way to rank these pages. 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. The system works so well that Google has
gained wide-spread praise for its high relevancy. Google
provides web page search results to a variety of partners,
including Yahoo and Netscape Search (see below). Google
also provides the ability to search for images, through
Usenet discussions and its own version of the Open Directory
(see below).
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HotBot
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 launched
in May 1996 as Wired Digital's entry into the search engine
market. Lycos purchased Wired Digital in October 1998 and
continues to run HotBot as a separate search service.
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iWon
iWon's
results come from both Overture & Inktomi. iWon
gives away daily, weekly and monthly prizes in a marketing
model unique among the major services. It launched
in Fall 1999.
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Inktomi
Originally
there was an Inktomi search engine at UC Berkeley. The
creators then formed their own company with the same name
and created a new Inktomi index, which was first used to
power HotBot. Now the Inktomi index also powers several
other 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.
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LookSmart
LookSmart
is a human-compiled directory of web sites. In addition
to being a stand-alone service, LookSmart provides directory
results to MSN Search, Excite and many other partners. Inktomi
provides LookSmart with search results when a search fails
to find a match from among LookSmart's reviews. LookSmart
launched independently in October 1996, was backed by Reader's
Digest for about a year, and then company executives bought
back control of the service.
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Lycos
Lycos
started out as a search engine, depending on listings that
came from spidering the web. In April 1999, it shifted
to a directory model similar to Yahoo. Its main listings
come from AllTheWeb.com with some results from the Open
Directory project. In October 1998, Lycos acquired the competing
HotBot search service, which continues to be run separately.
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MSN
Search
Microsoft's
MSN Search service is a LookSmart-powered directory of web
sites, with secondary results that come from Inktomi. Direct
Hit data is also made available.
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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.
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Open
Directory
The
Open Directory uses volunteer editors to catalog the web.
Formerly known as NewHoo, it was launched in June
1998. 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. Netscape-owner
AOL also uses Open Directory information, as does Google
and Lycos.
Yahoo
Yahoo
is the web's most popular search service and has a well-deserved
reputation for helping people find information easily. The
secret to Yahoo's success is human beings. It is the
largest human-compiled guide to the web, employing about
150 editors in an effort to categorize the web. Yahoo
has well over 1 million sites listed. Yahoo also supplements
its results with those from Google. If a search fails
to find a match within Yahoo's own listings, then matches
from Google are displayed. Google matches also appear
after all Yahoo matches have first been shown. Yahoo
is the oldest major web site directory, having launched
in late 1994.
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