---------------------------------------------- Top Choices ---------------------------------------------- Flipper http://www.flipper.com/ Flipper is a meta search engine that not only displays results from other search engines and from the Open Directory, but from sites that are part of the invisible web, as well. Most of these deep web sites are commercially oriented, but there are also useful information sites for things like music and films. iBoogie http://www.iboogie.tv/ iBoogie allows you to select results from the web, products or services from the "BuyWeb," or limit your queries to the deep web, images, video or audio. It also performs real-time clustering of results, creating a list of categories related to your search terms for easy browsing. 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. 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/indexu.htm 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. 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. It also presents a thematic map that shows the most important sites and the linkage relationships among the various results. 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. qbSearch http://www.qbsearch.com Want to get multiple pages of results from a search engine combined into one single page? QB-Search will quickly join up to 200 pages of listings from major search engines. 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. SearchOnline http://www.searchonline.info/ SearchOnline is a relatively new service, but one that 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. 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. See also: Hang Ten with SurfWax Metasearch http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/01/sd0710-surfwax1.html SurfWax is a metasearch engine with some powerful advanced features, including the ability to build your own customized gateways into the Invisible web. Power Searching with SurfWax http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/01/sd0711-surfwax2.html We continue our look under the hood of SurfWax, a metasearch engine that offers some unique advanced features to registered users. 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. ---------------------------------------------- Popular Choices ---------------------------------------------- Many of the meta search engines below are popular with users, but they aren't listed as top choices by Search Engine Watch. This is because they typically mix paid listings within editorial results, without any type of disclaimers. The article "Meta Search Or Meta Ads?" by Danny Sullivan covers this issue more. It also explains how you can control the ads you see and turn the metacrawlers listed into better resources, by making use of customization options. Meta Search Or Meta Ads? http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/01/05-metasearch.html A review of meta search services by Search Engine Watch shows that some are providing results where more than half of their listings are paid links. A guide to what's paid, what's not and how to get the most from your meta search service. Dogpile http://www.dogpile.com Popular metasearch site that sends a search to a customizable list of search engines, directories and specialty search sites, then displays results from each search engine individually. Owned by InfoSpace, which also owns MetaCrawler. Excite http://www.excite.com Formerly a crawler based search engine with its own index, it was transformed into a meta search engine when purchased by InfoSpace in 2001. 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. Webcrawler http://www.excite.com Formerly a crawler based search engine using a much smaller subset of the Excite index, it was transformed into a meta search engine when purchased by InfoSpace in 2001. ---------------------------------------------- See also: ---------------------------------------------- The Big Four Meta Search Engines http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/02/sd0917-infospace.html Though there are dozens of useful meta search engines, InfoSpace is the industry gorilla, operating the four arguably best known and most heavily used properties. Mamma http://www.mamma.com Mamma is an unusual meta search engine in that it only searches a few major indexes -- the rest of the sites queried are directories or paid-placement services. 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 uses technology from SavvySearch, which was acquired by CNET in October 1999. The SavvySearch site itself no longer operates. SavvySearch was one of the older metasearch services, around since May 1995 and formerly based at Colorado State University. All-In-One Search Pages http://searchenginewatch.com/links/allinone.html 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. See All-In-One Search Pages for a list of these type of resources. ---------------------------------------------- About the Author: Chris Sherman is the Associate Editor of SearchEngineWatch.com, and a frequent contributor to Online Magazine, EContent, Information Today and other information industry journals. He's also written several books, including The McGraw-Hill CD ROM Handbook and The Invisible Web: Uncovering Information Sources Search Engines Can't See, co-authored with Gary Price. He's been writing about search and search engines since 1994, when he developed online searching tutorials for several of his clients. From 1998 to 2001, he was the Web Search Guide for About.com. When not working on Search Engine Watch he is President of Searchwise (http://www.searchwise.net/), a Boulder, Colorado based Web consultancy. /-------------------------------------------------------------------\ The 2nd annual International IT Service Management Summit is specifically designed to educate mgmt level attendees on how standardized processes & best practices can be systematically applied across the entire range of IT support and delivery functions, while effectively managing costs. Now 3 days, including thought-provoking keynote presentations,32+ breakout sessions and a broad range of networking and vendor activities. http://www.intmediaevents.com/itsms/fall02 \--------------------------------------------------------------adv.-/ ---------------------------------------------- Reprinted from Search Engine Watch (http://searchenginewatch.com/) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ LIKE THIS NEWSLETTER? WANT YOUR OWN? 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