By
Danny
Sullivan, Editor
April 28,
2004
In the search
engine list below, Search Engine Watch provides a guide to the major search
engines of the web. Why are these considered to be "major" search
engines? Because they are either well-known or well-used.
For
webmasters, the major search engines are the most important places to be
listed, because they can potentially generate so much traffic.
For searchers,
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.
On this page,
you will see reference to "crawlers" and "crawler-based
results" versus "directories" and "human-powered
results." These describe the two major ways that search engines get
editorial listings. See the How Search
Engines Work page to understand more about the difference between crawlers
and directories.
If you are
interested in being listed in these search engines, see Search Engine Watch's Search Engine Submission Tips
section for free, step-by-step help about the essentials to submitting to
search engines and improving your chances of ranking well. Relevant links to
specific tips are integrated into this page, as well.
Also consider
becoming a Search Engine Watch member,
to gain access to detailed
information about how the various major search engines work. Finally, for
an at-a-glance view of how the major search engines get their results, see the Search
Engine Results Chart.
Scroll down for listings or jump directly to:
Top Choices
Strongly
Consider - Other
Choices
The search
engines below are all excellent choices to start with when searching for
information.
Google
http://www.google.com
Voted four
times Most
Outstanding Search Engine by Search Engine Watch readers, Google has a
well-deserved reputation as the top choice for those searching the web. The
crawler-based service provides both comprehensive coverage of the web along
with great relevancy. It's highly recommended as a first stop in your hunt for
whatever you are looking for.
Google
provides the option to find more than web pages, however. Using on the top of
the search box on the Google home page, you can easily seek out images from
across the web, discussions that are taking place on Usenet newsgroups, locate
news information or perform product searching. Using the More link provides
access to human-compiled information from the Open Directory (see below),
catalog searching and other services.
Google is also
known for the wide range of features it offers, such as cached links that let
you "resurrect" dead pages or see older versions of recently changed
ones. It offers excellent spell checking, easy access to dictionary
definitions, integration of stock quotes, street maps, telephone numbers and
more. See Google's help page
for an entire rundown on some of these features. The Google Toolbar has also won a popular
following for the easy access it provides to Google and its features directly
from the Internet Explorer browser.
In addition to
Google's unpaid editorial results, the company also operates its own
advertising programs. The cost-per-click AdWords program places ads on Google
as well as some of Google's partners. Similarly, Google is also a provider of
unpaid editorial results to some other search engines. For a list of major
partnerships, see the Search
Providers Chart.
Google was
originally a Stanford University project by students Larry Page and Sergey Brin
called BackRub. By 1998, the name had been changed to Google, and the project
jumped off campus and became the private company Google. It remains privately
held today.
Getting
Listed: Read
the Submitting
To Google section of Search Engine Watch's Essentials
Of Search Engine Submission guide for more about being included in Google's
editorial results and the Google
AdWords section for more about its paid listings programs.
Search Engine
Watch members
have access to the How
Google Works section of the web site, which provides in-depth coverage of
the editorial and paid listings processes at Google. Learn more about becoming
a member on the membership
information page.
Yahoo
http://www.yahoo.com
Launched in
1994, Yahoo is the web's oldest "directory," a place where human
editors organize web sites into categories. However, in October 2002, Yahoo
made a giant shift to crawler-based listings for its main results. These came
from Google until February 2004. Now, Yahoo uses its own search technology.
Learn more in this recent review
from our SearchDay newsletter, which also provides some updated submission
details.
In addition to
excellent search results, you can use tabs above the search box on the Yahoo
home page to seek images, Yellow Page listings or use Yahoo's excellent
shopping search engine. Or visit the Yahoo Search home page, where even more specialized
search options are offered.
The Yahoo
Directory still survives. You'll notice "category" links below some
of the sites lists in response to a keyword search. When offered, these will take
you to a list of web sites that have been reviewed and approved by a human
editor.
It's also
possible to do a pure search of just the human-compiled Yahoo Directory, which
is how the old or "classic" Yahoo used to work. To do this, search
from the Yahoo Directory home page, as
opposed to the regular Yahoo.com home page. Then you'll get both directory
category links ("Related Directory Categories") and "Directory
Results," which are the top web site matches drawn from all categories of
the Yahoo Directory.
Sites pay a
fee to be included in the Yahoo Directory's commercial listings, though they
must meet editor approval before being accepted. Non-commercial content is
accepted for free. Yahoo's content
acquisition program also offers paid inclusion, where sites can also pay to
be included in Yahoo's crawler-based results. This doesn't guarantee ranking,
Yahoo promises. The CAP program also bring in content from non-profit
organizations for free.
Like Google,
Yahoo sells paid placement advertising links that appear on its own site and
which are distributed to others. These are sold through Overture. Yahoo
purchased Overture in a company Yahoo purchased in October 2003.
Overture was
formerly called GoTo until late 2001. More about it can be found on the Paid Listings
Search Engines page. Overture purchased
AllTheWeb (see below) in
March 2003 and acquired
AltaVista (see below) in
April 2003. Now Yahoo owns these, gained as from its purchase of Overture.
Technology
AltaVista and AllTheWeb was combined with that of Inktomi, a crawler-based
search engine that grew out UC Berkeley and then launched as its own company in
1996, to make the current Yahoo crawler. Yahoo purchased
Inktomi in March 2003.
Getting
Listed: Read
the Submitting
To Yahoo section of Search Engine Watch's Essentials
Of Search Engine Submission guide for more information on appearing in
Yahoo's own editorial results. Read the Overture
section of Search Engine Watch's Essentials
Of Search Engine Submission guide for more information on Overture's paid
listings program.
Search Engine
Watch members
have access to the How
Yahoo Works section of the web site, which provides in-depth coverage of
how Yahoo gathers listings. The How
Overture Works page, which provides in-depth coverage of how cost-per-click
ads can be placed with Overture.
Ask Jeeves
http://www.askjeeves.com
Ask Jeeves
initially gained fame in 1998 and 1999 as being the "natural
language" search engine that let you search by asking questions and
responded with what seemed to be the right answer to everything.
In reality,
technology wasn't what made Ask Jeeves perform so well. Behind the scenes, the
company at one point had about 100 editors who monitored search logs. They then
went out onto the web and located what seemed to be the best sites to match the
most popular queries.
Today, Ask
Jeeves instead depends on crawler-based technology to provide results to its
users. These results come from the Teoma search engine that it owns, which is
described below.
Ask Jeeves is
doing innovative things with invisible
tabs and with what it calls Smart Search.
We think the future of search will be this much smarter approach to delivering
up more than just web pages. It makes Ask Jeeves a well-worth a visit by anyone
looking for information.
Ask Jeeves
also owns now closed Direct Hit service.
Getting
Listed: For
the main editorial listings at Ask Jeeves, you need to be listed with Teoma,
which is described below. Paid
listings come from Google AdWords, described above.
Search Engine
Watch members
have access to the How
Ask Jeeves Works page, which provides in-depth coverage of how Ask Jeeves
integrates listings from Teoma and its own editors.
The search
engines below are other good choices to consider when searching the web.
AllTheWeb.com
http://www.alltheweb.com
Powered by
Yahoo, you may find AllTheWeb a lighter, more customizable and pleasant
"pure search" experience than you get at Yahoo itself. The focus is
on web search, but news, picture, video, MP3 and FTP search are also offered.
AllTheWeb.com
was previously owned by a company called FAST and used as a showcase for that
company's web search technology. That's why you sometimes may sometimes hear
AllTheWeb.com also referred to as FAST or FAST Search. However, the search
engine was purchased
by search provider Overture (see below) in
late April 2003, then later become Yahoo's property when Yahoo bought Overture.
It no longer has a connection with FAST.
AOL Search
http://aolsearch.aol.com (internal)
http://search.aol.com/(external)
AOL Search
provides users with editorial listings that come Google's crawler-based index.
Indeed, the same search on Google and AOL Search will come up with very similar
matches. So, why would you use AOL Search? Primarily because you are an AOL
user. The "internal" version of AOL Search provides links to content
only available within the AOL online service. In this way, you can search AOL
and the entire web at the same time. The "external" version lacks
these links. Why wouldn't you use AOL Search? If you like Google, many of
Google's features such as "cached" pages are not offered by AOL
Search.
Getting
Listed:
AOL essentially duplicates the editorial and ad listings that are shown on
Google, so you need to be listed with Google in one of these ways, as described
above .
Search Engine
Watch members
have access to the How
AOL Search Works page, which provides in-depth coverage of how AOL Search
operates and why there may be subtle differences between it and Google.
HotBot
http://www.hotbot.com
HotBot
provides easy access to the web's three major crawler-based search engines:
Yahoo, Google and Teoma. Unlike a meta search
engine, it cannot blend the results from all of these crawlers together.
Nevertheless, it's a fast, easy way to get different web search
"opinions" in one place.
HotBot's
"choose a search engine" interface was introduced in December 2002.
However, HotBot has a long history as a search brand before this date.
HotBot debuted
in May 1996, it gained a strong following among serious searchers for the
quality and comprehensiveness of its crawler-based results, which were provided
by Inktomi, at the time. It also caught the attention of experienced web users
and techies, especially for the unusual colors and interface it continues to
sport today.
HotBot gained
more notoriety when it switched over to using Direct Hit's "clickthrough"
results for its main listings in 1999. Direct Hit was then one of the
"hot" search engines that had recently appeared. Unfortunately, the
quality of Direct Hit's results couldn't match those of another "hot"
player that had debuted at the same time, Google. HotBot's popularity began to
drop.
Even worse,
HotBot also suffered by being owned by Lycos (now Terra Lycos). Lycos had
acquired HotBot when it purchased Wired Digital in October 1998. Lycos failed
to make search a priority on its flagship Lycos site as well as HotBot through
much of 1999 and 2000, as it focused instead on adding "portal"
features. The company refocused on search in late 2001, making significant
improvements to the Lycos site and, as noted, reworked the HotBot site at the
end of 2002.
Getting
Listed: For
the main editorial listings at HotBot, you need to be listed with the three
major crawlers that it can query. Follow the links for these crawlers on this
page, where they are mentioned.
Teoma
http://www.teoma.com
Teoma is a
crawler-based search engine owned by Ask Jeeves. It has a smaller index of the
web than its rival crawler-competitors Google and Yahoo. However, being large
doesn't make much of a difference when it comes to popular queries, and Teoma's
won praise for its relevancy since it appeared in 2000. Some people also like
its "Refine" feature, which offers suggested topics to explore after
you do a search. The "Resources" section of results is also unique,
pointing users to page that specifically serve as link resources about various
topics. Teoma was purchased by Ask Jeeves in September 2001 and also provides
some results to that web site.
Getting
Listed: Read
the Submitting
To Teoma section of Search Engine Watch's Essentials
Of Search Engine Submission guide for more information on being included in
editorial results. Paid listings come from Google AdWords, described above.
Search Engine
Watch members
have access to the How
Ask Jeeves Works page, which provides links to more in-depth coverage of
how Ask Jeeves-owned Teoma gathers listings.
The sites
below are "major" in the sense that they either still receive
significant amounts of traffic or they've earned a reputation in the past that
still causes some people to consider them to be important. For various reasons
explained below, they are not among our top search choices. However, certainly
feel free to try them. They could turn out to be top choices for you.
AltaVista
http://www.altavista.com
AltaVista
opened in December 1995 and for several years was the "Google" of its
day, in terms of providing relevant results and having a loyal group of users
that loved the service.
Sadly, an
attempt to turn AltaVista into a portal site in 1998 saw the company lose track
of the importance of search. Over time, relevancy dropped, as did the freshness
of AltaVista's listings and the crawler's coverage of the web.
Today,
AltaVista is once again focused on search. Results come from Yahoo, and tabs
above the search box let you go beyond web search to find images, MP3/Audio,
Video, human category listings and news results. If you want a lighter-feel
than Yahoo but to still have Yahoo's results, AltaVista is worth considering.
AltaVista was
originally owned by Digital, then taken over by Compaq, when that company
purchased Digital in 1998. AltaVista was later spun off into a private company,
controlled by CMGI. Overture purchasing
the search engine in April 2003, then it later became part of Yahoo when Yahoo
bought Overture.
Gigablast
http://www.gigablast.com
Compared to
Google, Yahoo or even Teoma, Gigablast has a tiny index of the web. However,
the service is constantly gaining new and interesting features. Give it a whirl,
if you want to try something experimental yet dependable. Read more about
Gigablast in this recent interview
from our SearchDay newsletter.
LookSmart
http://www.looksmart.com
LookSmart is
primarily a human-compiled directory of web sites. It gathers its listings in
two ways. Commercial sites pay to be listed in its commercial categories,
making the service very much like an electronic "Yellow Pages."
However, volunteer editors at the LookSmart-owned Zeal
directory also catalog sites into non-commercial categories for free. Though
Zeal is a separate web site, its listings are integrated into LookSmart's results.
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.
LookSmart also
bought the WiseNut crawler-based search engine in April 2002. WiseNut's are
offered through the LookSmart via its Web tab above the search box. Unlike its
competitors, the WiseNut crawler has often been out of date, sometimes for
months at a time.
Finally, the
real gem at LookSmart can be found via its Articles tab. That provides access
to content from thousands of periodicals.
Getting
Listed: Read
the Submitting
To LookSmart section of Search Engine Watch's Essentials
Of Search Engine Submission guide for more information on being included in
its free non-commercial listings. See the LookSmart
Paid Listings section for information about cost-per-click commercial
listings.
Search Engine
Watch members
have access to the How
LookSmart Works page, which has in-depth coverage of how LookSmart gathers
listings.
Lycos
http://www.lycos.com
Lycos is one
of the oldest search engines on the web, launched in 1994. It ceased crawling
the web for its own listings in April 1999 and instead provides access to
human-powered results from LookSmart for popular queries and crawler-based
results from Yahoo for others.
"Fast
Forward" lets you see search results in one side of your screen and
the actual pages listed in another. Relevant categories of human-compiled
information from the Open Directory appear at the bottom of the search results
page.
Lycos is owned
by Terra Lycos, a company formed with
Lycos and Terra Networks merged in October 2000. Terra Lycos also owns the
HotBot search engine described above.
Getting
Listed: For
the main editorial listings at Lycos, you need to be listed with AllTheWeb.com,
which is described above on
this page. Paid listings come from Overture, described below, and
additional paid listings come from Terra Lycos's own program, as described in this
article.
Search Engine
Watch members
have access to the How
Lycos Works page, which provides in-depth coverage of how Lycos integrates
listings from its search providers.
MSN Search
http://search.msn.com
Formerly one
of Search Engine Watch's top choices, MSN Search is definitely one to watch.
The service was previously powered by LookSmart results and gained top marks
for having its own team of editors that monitored the most popular searches
being performed to hand-pick sites believed to be the most relevant. The system
worked well.
Today, MSN
Search is in transition. It provides access to Yahoo listings but not as much
functionality in terms of other types of searches that you'll find at Yahoo
itself. However, MSN is developing its own crawler-based technology and
planning other
changes that should revitalize the service in later 2004.
Getting
Listed: You
need to be listed with Yahoo and Overture, which are described further above on this
page.
Search Engine
Watch members
have access to the How
MSN Search Works page, which provides in-depth coverage of how MSN
integrates listings from its search providers and its own editors.
Netscape
Search
http://search.netscape.com
Owned by AOL
Time Warner, Netscape Search uses Google for its main listings, just as does
AOL's other major search site, AOL Search. So why use Netscape Search rather
than Google? Unlike with AOL Search, there's no compelling reason to consider
it. The main difference between Netscape Search and Google is that Netscape
Search will list some of Netscape's own content at the top of its results.
Netscape also has a completely different look and feel than Google. If you like
either of these reasons, then try Netscape Search. Otherwise, you're probably
better off just searching at Google.
Getting
Listed:
Netscape essentially duplicates the editorial and ad listings that are shown on
Google, so you need to be listed with Google in one of these ways, as described
above on
this page.
Open
Directory
http://dmoz.org/
The Open
Directory uses volunteer editors to catalog the web. Formerly known as NewHoo,
it was launched in June 1998. It was acquired by AOL Time Warner-owned Netscape
in November 1998, and the company pledged that anyone would be able to use
information from the directory through an open license arrangement.
While you can
search at the Open Directory site itself, this is not recommended. The site has
no "backup" results that kick in should there not be a match in the
human-compiled database. In addition, the ranking of sites during keyword
searching is poor, while alphabetical ordering is used when you choose to
"browse" categories by topic.
Instead, to
scan the valuable information compiled by the Open Directory, consider using
the version offered by Google, the Google
Directory. Here, keyword searching uses Google's refined relevancy
algorithms and makes use of link analysis to better propel good pages from the
human database to the top. In addition, when viewing sites by category, they
will be listed in PageRank
order, which means the most popular sites based on analyzing links from across
the web will be listed first.
Getting
Listed: Read
the Submitting
To The Open Directory section of Search Engine Watch's Essentials
Of Search Engine Submission guide for more information.
Search Engine
Watch members
have access to the How
The Open Directory Works page, which provides in-depth coverage of how the
Open Directory gathers listings.
Still looking
for more search engines? Consider these options:
Other Global
Search Engines
Other services that cover the world. They may not be as popular or well-known
as the services above, but they may still be helpful
Community-Based
Search Engines
Places where volunteers are involved in the listing process
Guides To
Search Engines
Lists places that themselves list hundreds of search engines worldwide.
Where Are
They Now? Search Engines We've Known & Loved
The
Search Engine Report, March 4, 2003
Not a list of
search engines but some additional past history about the major players above
and former major search engines that have faded in glory or disappeared
entirely, over time.