Internet Research Resources: Best General Search Engines

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Scope

• Among the numerous general Search Engines, there are several that are outstanding for one or a combination of reasons.
• Those reasons include:
  • Size of the database
    • How many Web pages and other Internet files have been collected in the Search Engine's database.
    • Information on Search Engine database sizes is at SearchEngineWatch.com
  • Depth of Collection:
    • Does the Search Engine collect just collect the "home page" of a Web site or as many pages as can be collected in every layer of the Web site?
  • Independence of the Database
    • Does the Search Engine develop or use its own Search Engine collection/database software, or is it licensing a database from another company, such as AltaVista, Google, or Inktomi?
  • Thoroughness of Indexing
    • Does the Search Engine index every word:
      • Individually and in phrases?
      • By the field in which it is in (title, text, link, caption, etc.)?
  • Sophistication of Search Capabilities
    • Does the Search Engine offer Booleans, phrase searching, field searching, wildcards, proximity operators, date-limiting, and other search functions?
  • Internet Index Included
    • Does the Search Engine also offer an index to Internet resources? Often Search Engines license an index from another company or organization, such as the Open Directory or the LookSmart Directory.
  • Help Pages
    • Does the Search Engine offer clear and comprehensive searching instructions and tips, including examples?

Best General Search Engines (Yes, this is my biased view.)

• SEARCH ENGINE	OTHER VERSIONS & INSTRUCTIONS
  AltaVista www.altavista.com www.altavista.com/web/adv	Estimated 600 million Web pages and other files. Generally the best search functionality. Advanced Search offers full Boolean searching support.
  AllTheWeb (aka FastSearch) www.alltheweb.com	Billions Web pages and other files.
  Google www.google.com www.google.com/advanced_search	Claims billions of indexed Internet/Web pages. This is questionable, as the about half of those pages are reported to be only partially downloaded or indexed. Use the Advanced Search for more sophisticated searching. Ranks results by links to and from it by other "quality" Web pages. Also has hundreds of millions of newsgroup messages and images in separate databases.
  Northern Light Research www.nlresearch.com	About 600 million Web pages and other files. Organizes results into folders. Can simultaneously search over 7,100 full-text publications with over 25 million articles (these are licensed from other database producers), but you must pay to see the full-text.
  OpenFind www.openfind.com	Newer search engine out of Taiwan. Claims billions of indexed Web pages. Large portion of Web pages indexed are in Chinese, but a search may be limited to English.
  Teoma www.teoma.com	New, small database. Divides retrieved web pages into folder categories.
  WiseNut www.wisenut.com	Claims over 1.4 billion Web pages and files.

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