Articles Of Comparing Search Engines

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.

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.

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.

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.