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Worldwide Search Engines
Number 1: Google.com (no surprise there)
USER RATING: 4.8 Stars out of 5
Hyper-fast searches, consistent relevance, a gigantic catalog, curious features like archived pages, spell check, toolbars, froogle, a phenomenal image search, a banner-free interface, and publishing in nearly 100 different languages... nobody can offer what Google.com offers. Consistently the favorite choice of millions of Internet searchers, Google (Google.com, Google.ca, Google.fr, Google.de, Google.co.uk) has rightfully earned the spot as Top Search Engine for 2004.
PROS: Google is the single largest, most thorough, and most featured web database available to the public.
CONS: it's not necessarily good to have a dynasty.
USERS' COMMENTS:: "It's all you'll ever need to search for anything", "I use the images searching all the time", "I love the Google toolbar, the Zeitgeist, and the Froogle features".
EDITOR'S COMMENTS: The taller they are, the harder they fall. Keep an eye out for Vivisimo.com and Dogpile.com.
Number 2: Vivisimo.com (Tied with Yahoo.com)
USER RATING: 4.6 Stars out of 5
Surprise! This underdog meta-search engine was virtually unknown in the first weeks of this survey. However, once our focus group experimented with Vivisimo for 7 days, it quickly usurped Ask.com as a Number 2 favorite.
Like Dogpile.com, Vivisimo is an excellent alternative to Google. It is fast, clean, and relevant, and it offers guiding search suggestions in the form of "Clustered Results" in the left margin. Clustering means, if you search for the keywords "german shepherds", Vivisimo will also offer you results organized by "breeds", "training", "breeders", "rescue", and "clubs".
PROS: All the functionality and speed of Google, with "Clustering" added.
CONS: It is difficult to type "vivisimo.com" quickly
USERS' COMMENTS::"Awesome. I like it more than Google!", "The margin suggestions are really helpful", "Cool".
EDITOR'S COMMENT: Vivisimo is excellent. It is my second focused-searching choice after Google.com.
Number 2: Yahoo (Tied with Vivisimo.com)
USER RATING: 4.6 Stars out of 5
Yahoo.com is ten years old this 2004. Originally managed by a human editor staff, Yahoo recently switched to "automated-crawling" like Google uses. With the acquisition of Alltheweb, GoTo (Overture), and Altavista, Yahoo is now an amalgam of many different database technologies. Furthermore, Yahoo is also a full-featured consumer portal like MSN, providing shopping, news, and other services beyond searching.
PROS: A familiar household name that constantly strives to earn its users' trust and affection. Lots of money is poured into Yahoo.com development, which helps maintain its status as cutting edge.
CONS: The Yahoo.com interface is a knock-off of Alltheweb.com's interface (no points for originality there, boys).
USERS' COMMENTS:: "Yahoo is the best!", "I like it more than Google", "It's gotten better over the years".
EDITOR'S COMMENT: Yahoo.com is not only easy spelling to remember, but it is an old family friend you can always count on.
Number 4: About.com
USER RATING: 4.5 Stars out of 5
About, like Yahoo directory and DMOZ, is a search "directory". The links you find at About are hand-picked by human editors, not auto-indexed like they are at Google.
Ironically, About's search directory service is a secondary focus for the company. About is primarily focused on being a provider of relevant and specific original content on the Net. With 480 subjects managed by 480 expert editors, About publishes the most-prolific original content on the Internet, while simultaneously providing search directory resources for its readers.
PROS: When you want to focus on a single topic, About is often the single best free resource for depth and breadth.
CONS: About is powered by advertising, and can be cumbersome to navigate.
USERS' COMMENTS::"Too much advertising", "Excellent content for consumers", "Good depth of material for hobbyists and researchers".
EDITOR'S COMMENT: About is staffed by some of the most professional and earnest authors on the planet. It is a joy to be part of this network.
Number 5: AskJeeves
USER RATING: 4.2 Stars out of 5
Ask.com, (also known as AJ.com and AskJeeves.com), is powered by the Teoma.com search engine. It originally started as "natural language" searching, where users could type in natural human questions instead of clunky search phrases. Like Vivisimo and Dogpile, Ask.com also offers guiding suggestions and "clustered" results in the margin.
PROS: The interface is fast, clean, and answers are usually very relevant to the question. The clustered search suggestions in the margin are very helpful. Advertising is disclosed fully on each search page.
CONS: Way too many sponsored links; users have to scroll halfway down before seeing legitimate search results.
USERS' COMMENTS:: "Cluttered appearance", "My kids really use this a lot for school", "good for lazy browsing".
EDITOR'S COMMENT: I used to really like AskJeeves, as it offers childlike-ease with its natural language querying. Alas, I am disappointed by the recent advertising overload there. I now prefer Dogpile or Vivisimo over Ask.com.
Number 6: Dogpile.com
USER RATING: 4.1 Stars out of 5
Dogpile is an Infospace service that has improved dramatically over the years. As a "meta search" engine, Dogpile searches other search engines, and returns cream-of-the-crop results in one combined list. What's even better, Dogpile also provides guiding search suggestions ("clustering results") to the user, which is very helpful when doing initial research on a new topic.
PROS: Dogpile now uses Vivisimo's "Clustering" technology; Dogpile also combines results from Google, Yahoo, Altavsita, AskJeeves. Most of all, Dogpile explicitly labels the links that are sponsored versus those that are legitimate search results.
CONS: You can't choose which other search engines that Dogpile will search.
USERS' COMMENTS:: "A nice change from Google and Yahoo". "The sponsored links are deceptive... you have to look closely".
EDITOR'S COMMENT: Dogpile is excellent. Too bad about the visual imagery that goes with its name.
Number 7: MSN.com
USER RATING: 3.8 Stars out of 5
MSN.com, along with MSN.ca, is more than just a search engine; it is a full-fledged "portal" that provides consumer services to the user. It has the financial backing of the gargantuan Microsoft Corporation, and is integrated right into your IE browser toolbar.
PROS: Easy for IE users to call up; Microsoft is hiring away Google developers; sponsored links are fully disclosed on the page.
CONS: Many web users don't want searching to become about software; MSN vs. Google is starting to feel like Microsoft vs. Netscape.
USERS' COMMENTS:: "I really like the news feeds and articles". "Good shopping and links".
EDITOR'S COMMENT: If you don't mind having your PC taken over by Microsoft, then there are many consumer reasons to use the MSN search portal.
Number 8: KartOO.com
USER RATING: 3.6 Stars out of 5
KartOO is a French-based meta search engine, and a delightful twist on searching! Although lacking in database size, KartOO shines with its graphical presentation. By using a visual "mindmap" to display its results, users can see how keywords branch out to specific hits. You can even customize how the map displays on your screen! If you're not in a hurry to do your searching, then try this beautiful Flash interface!
PROS: KartOO is beautiful to look at, and its interface can be customized nicely
CONS: Not for instant searching; KartOO also needs another two years of database indexing to augment its catalog size.
USERS' COMMENTS::"Very cool!". "I love the mindmapping". "Excellent graphics".
EDITOR'S COMMENT: KartOO is building a niche for itself. Watch for this service to become big within 3 years.
Top Search Engine, Number 9: Alltheweb.com
USER RATING: 3.1 Stars out of 5
Effectively, Alltheweb.com is the search engine version of Yahoo. Alltheweb.com was originally owned by Overture, which was then bought by Yahoo. Now, Alltheweb allows you to search Yahoo content, but with a spartan look and feel that resembles Google.
PROS: excellent video and photo searching features, clean and fast interface, the designers ask users for relevancy feedback.
CONS: obscured by weak marketing, index is only half the size of Google's.
USERS' COMMENTS:: "Looks like Google". "Clean look". "Fast".
EDITOR'S COMMENT: Yahoo should consider blending this search engine into its existing Yahoo.com name for better branding.
Top Search Directory, Number 10: DMOZ.org
USER RATING: 2.3 Stars out of 5
To be technically correct, The Open Directory Project (DMOZ.org, formerly NewHoo) is a search "directory", not a search "engine". This means: the content at DMOZ.org is hand-picked by human editors, not by robot programs.
Sponsored by Netscape, and employing 50,000 volunteer experts as editors, the ODP (DMOZ.org) has about 4 million links in its database. Although less than 1% the size of Google, DMOZ.org is packed with helpful hand-picked Internet links that have been filtered by human judgment.
PROS: DMOZ content is hand-picked by subject matter experts; irrelevant content is usually filtered out well.
CONS: Content quality varies with the quality of volunteerism, slow to update, ranking is inconsistent, not good for news or current events content.
USERS' COMMENTS::"good for researching evergreen content, but it's clunky."
EDITOR'S COMMENT: A great philanthropic search idea, but is eclipsed by the money monsters of Yahoo and Google.
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