Meta Search Engines

Unified Interfaces: multi-threaded navigators

• Dogpile
  Searches the Web (Yahoo!, Lycos' A2Z, Excite Guide, Go2.com, WWW Yellow Pages , PlanetSearch, Thunderstone, What U Seek, Magellan, Lycos, WebCrawler, InfoSeek, AltaVista, Excite & HotBot), Usenet (Hotbot News, Reference.com, Dejanews, Altavista and Dejanews' old Database), FTP (Filez, FTP Search) and News Wires (Yahoo News Headlines, Excite News and Infoseek NewsWires). Only the first word will be passed on to FTP Search.

  Search The Web Usenet FTP and then The Web Usenet FTP STOP
  Wait a maximum of Ten Twenty Thirty Forty Fifty Sixty Seconds.

• MetaCrawler
  Excellent multi-threaded search engine that combines results from eight different services: Excite, HotBot, Open Text, Lycos, Webcrawler, InfoSeek, Yahoo, and Galaxy. Results sets specify name, URL, the database in which the resource was found, and any annotations that could be found in the source database. Upon receiving a query, the MetaCrawler posts the query to multiple search services in parallel, collates the returned references, and loads those references to verify their existence and to ensure that they contain relevant information. It has many useful features which other services either do not or are unable to provide. These include: (1) Automatic Verification: it can download references returned by other search services and ensure that those references are both accessible and contain valid data. (2) Complete Coverage: Each search service tends to produce a fairly unique set of references. Using the MetaCrawler, you're able to see one page which contains all of the references from each service. (3) Advanced Searching Syntax: it offers a powerful search syntax. It allows users to search for one or more phrases, all words, and any one word. It also has options to ensure that a particular word either appears or does not appear in any of the results. This way, you can ensure that the results generated are indeed what you're looking for. Insert a "+" before a search term to signify that the term must exist in a document, or add a "-" to signify that it must not be present. Parentheses around a group of words indicate that the words should be searched as a cohesive phrase. You can specify multiple phrases in your search terms. (4) Service Vote Rankings: it combines the confidence scores given to each reference by the services that return it. Thus, when it returns a reference, it sums the scores given by each service and presents them in a 'voted' ordering. (5) Location Specification: In addition to query syntax, you can specify where you wish to search. Thus, if you know you want something in your own country, you can ensure that the results you get are in fact from your own country! The only downside is that poorly constructed searches can take minutes to return results. Created by: Erik Selberg and Oren Etzioni of the University of Washington. Since febr. 1997 taken over by go2net.
  
  
  any all as a phrase

Multiple Interfaces: Forms-based collections of search tools

• Cusi at CWI
  (Configurable United Search Interface). A forms-based search tool which allows you to seach many searchable WWW resources, software indexes, people indexes, dictionaries, publications, news etc. You can also try the very effective designed SUSI at the Information Systems Working group at the University of Twente. Created by: Martijn de Koster from Nexor (UK).

• Internet Sleuth
  Several hundred general and specialty finding tools. These specialty tools are what this site is all about. When a category is selected, a forms interface is presented listing searchable databases for the chosen category. It provides a shortcut to more than 1500 searchable databases. Annotations briefly indicate the scope of the individual databases. It's real appeal comes from its database of searchable resources on the Web. Quick searching on The SLeuth is a handy way to run searches on several databases simultaneously whitout having to cut and past your query or scroll down the page of links. You can select a maximum of 10 databases to search at one time. The best results are achieved by using one query at one time, because all search engines have their own way of treating the words that you enter (they can treat those words as implicit 'and', as implicit 'or', as a single string etc). Quick Searches are useful if you are doing a very broad search or are familiar with the databases that you are searching. Like all metasearch engines this type of search does have severe limitations, because you cannot select and change options of the search engines. The Sleuth not only recognizes these limitations, but offers you the "Web Search Engines" link, where you can select and change options. Created by: Internet Bussiness Connection.

  Search Titles and Descriptions of Listings on The Sleuth
  Search should be fairly broad unless looking for a specific site. Enter a single string or words separated by "and" or "or". Use "*" for right hand truncation.
  

  
  
  Quick Search
  Hold CTRL key to select multiple databases - max 10.
  
  
  A2Z - Lycos Most Popular Sites Alta Vista Excite - Documents Excite - Reviews HotBot Infoseek Web Documents Lycos Open Text (phrase) Webcrawler Yahoo
  10 seconds 30 seconds 1 minute 2 minutes Maximum Search Time

  
  

• iTools
  Internet Tools is a collection of three convenient meta-resources (1) Find-It! which list search engines around the Web, (2) Promote-It! which lists several ways to get your Web page noticed, and (3) Research-IT!, which provides a quick way to research different resources, Web-based or otherwise. Each page provides links to the resources, and in most cases, also supplies forms for them so you can choose wether to use It!'s pages, or go straight to the source.

• Search.com
  All-in-one search launchpoint with 250 targets that find all kinds of information, from WWW sites to phone numbers, from movies to stock quotes, and all points between.