| Unlike search engines, metacrawlers don't
crawl the web themselves to build listings. Instead, they allow searches to
be sent to several search engines all at once. The results are then blended
together onto one page. Below are some of the major metacrawlers.
Dogpile
http://www.dogpile.com
Popular metasearch site owned by InfoSpace that sends a search to a
customizable list of search engines, directories and specialty search sites,
then displays results from each search engine individually.
Vivisimo
http://vivisimo.com/
Enter a search term, and Vivismo will not only pull back matching
responses from major search engines but also automatically organize the
pages into categories. Slick and easy to use.
HotBot
http://www.hotbot.com
Technically HotBot isn't a meta crawler, in that it doesn't search
several search engines all at once. However, it is unique in providing
direct, dependable and easy access to the web's four major crawler-based
search engines: Yahoo (use the HotBot button), AllTheWeb (use the Lycos
button, and note that LookSmart results appear for more popular queries),
Google and Teoma (use the Ask Jeeves button).
Kartoo
http://www.kartoo.com
If you like the idea of seeing your web results visually, this meta
search site shows the results with sites being interconnected by keywords.
Mamma
http://www.mamma.com
Founded in 1996, Mamma.com is one of the oldest meta search engines on
the web. Mamma searches against a variety of major crawlers, directories and
specialty search sites. The service also provides a paid listings option for
advertisers.
SurfWax
http://www.surfwax.com
Searches against major engines or provides those who open free accounts
the ability to chose from a list of hundreds. Using the "SiteSnaps" feature,
you can preview any page in the results and see where your terms appear in
the document. Allows results or documents to be saved for future use.
CurryGuide
http://web.curryguide.com/
Meta search engine for the US and several European countries, as well as
in various subject areas. Has ability to save your results for easy
rerunning at a future point.
Excite
http://www.excite.com
Formerly a crawled-based search engine, Excite was acquired by InfoSpace
in 2002 and uses the same underlying technology as the other InfoSpace meta
search engines, but maintains its own portal features.
Fazzle
http://www.fazzle.com/
Fazzle offers a highly flexible and customizable interface to a wide
variety of information sources, ranging from general web results to
specialized search resources in a number of subject specific categories.
Formerly called SearchOnline.
Gimenei
http://gimenei.com/
Gimenei queries an undisclosed number of search engines and removes
duplicates from results. Its most useful feature is an advanced search form
that allows you to limit your search to a specific country.
InfoGrid
http://www.infogrid.com
In a compact format, InfoGrid provides direct links to major search sites
and topical web sites in different categories. Meta search and news
searching is also offered.
Infonetware RealTerm Search
http://www.infonetware.com
This site is primarily designed to demonstrate classification technology
from Infogistics. It's a meta search engine, and it does topical
classification of results, like Vivisimo. However, it is unique in that you
can select several different topics, then "drill down" to see results from
all of them, rather than being restricted to the results from only one
topic.
Ithaki
http://www.ithaki.net/
Ithaki is probably the most "global" of all meta search engines,
available in 14 languages and offering more than 35 different categories for
limiting your search. In addition, Ithaki offers country specific search,
querying only local search engines rather than the regional versions of the
major search engines.
Ixquick
http://www.ixquick.com/
Meta search engine that ranks results based on the number of "top 10"
rankings a site receives from the various search engines.
Meceoo
http://www.meceoo.com/
Meta search against AltaVista, AllTheWeb and Inktomi, with the ability to
create an "exclusion list" to block pages from particular web sites being
included. For example, want to meta search only against .org sites?
French version also
offered.
MetaCrawler
http://www.metacrawler.com
One of the oldest meta search services, MetaCrawler began in July 1995 at
the University of Washington. MetaCrawler was purchased by InfoSpace, an
online content provider, in Feb. 97.
MetaEureka
http://www.metaeureka.com
Search against several major search engines and paid listings services.
Offers a nice option to see Alexa info about pages that are listed.
One Blink - 1Blink
http://www.1blink.com
Metasearch against several major search engines or within subject
categories.
ProFusion
http://www.profusion.com
Brings back listings from several major search engines as well as
"Invisible Web" resources. Formerly based at the University of Kansas, the
site was purchased by search company
Intelliseek in
April 2000.
Query Server
http://www.queryserver.com/web.htm
Search against major web-wide search engines, as well as major news,
health, money and government search services.
Turbo10
http://turbo10.com
Turbo10 is a metasearch Engine accesses both traditional web search
engines and some invisible web databases, with a very speedy interface.
Search.com
http://www.search.com
Search.com is a meta search engine operated by CNET. It offers both
web-wide search and a wide variety of specialty search options. Search.com
absorbed SavvySearch in October 1999. SavvySearch was one of the older
metasearch services, around since May 1995 and formerly based at Colorado
State University.
WebCrawler
http://www.webcrawler.com
Formerly a crawled-based search engine owned by Excite, Webcrawler was
acquired by InfoSpace in 2002 and uses the same underlying technology as the
other InfoSpace meta search engines, but offers a fast and clean, ad-free
interface.
ZapMeta
http://www.zapmeta.com
Provides a variety of ways to sort the results retrieved, plus provides
interesting visualization tools and other features.
The metacrawlers listed below let you meta search in specific subject
areas.
Family Friendly Search
http://www.familyfriendlysearch.com
Meta search service that queries major kid-friendly search engines.
Searchy.co.uk
http://www.searchy.co.uk
Searches 15 U.K. engines. The advanced search form allows you to change
the order that results are presented, either by speed or manually to suit
your own preferences.
Watson for the Macintosh
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/internet_utilities/watson.html
Watson is a "Swiss Army Knife" with nineteen interfaces to web content
and services -- an improvement on Sherlock, with nearly twice as many tools,
including Google Searching.
Unlike metacrawlers, all-in-one search pages do not send your query to
many search engines at the same time. Instead, they generally list a
wide-variety of search engines and allow you to search at your choice
without having to go directly to that search engine.
Google Versus Yahoo Tool
http://www.langreiter.com/exec/yahoo-vs-google.html
See visually how results compare on Google versus Yahoo.
One Page MultiSearch Engines
http://www.bjorgul.com/
Clean interface lets you query major services from one
page.
Proteus
http://www.thrall.org/proteus.html
Lets you easily send your search to one of several search
engines. It also has links to search engine help pages.
Queryster
http://www.queryster.com
Queryster lets you quickly get results from one of several major search
engines, simply by clicking an icon.
YW
http://www.yurweb.com
Select your search engines from the many choices offered. The results
will all appear within one page, side-by-side. It's a great way to compare
results, though a bit hard to read with more than two search engines
selected. Formerly called Yes Wacked. |
