By Jon Winters
Edited by Preston Landers
AOL Search Status: No Submissions
Results come from Open Directory, Inktomi, and a crawler.
AltaVista Status: Supported
In addition to itself it gets information from Open Directory and Ask Jeeves.
Ask Jeeves Status: Need .def
Ask Jeeves is a human-powered search service. Currently unable to
find a way to submit URLs to Jeeves. Sites submit to jeeves via an
email to url@askjeeves.com. They ask for a URL _and_ a breif
description of what the site is about. More info here.
Direct Hit Status: Supported!
Direct Hit is a company that works with other search engines to refine
their results. It does this by monitoring what users click on from the
results they see. Sites that get clicked on more than others rise
higher in Direct Hit's rankings. Thus, the service dubs itself a
"popularity engine." Direct Hit's technology is currently best seen at
HotBot. It also refines results at Lycos and is available as an option
at LookSmart and MSN Search. The company also crawls the web and
refines this database, which can be viewed via the link above.
Excite Status: Supported
Excite is one of the most popular search services on the web. It
offers a medium-sized index and integrates non-web material such as
company information and sports scores into its results, when
appropriate. Excite was launched in late 1995. It grew quickly in
prominence and consumed two of its competitors, Magellan in July 1996,
and WebCrawler in November 1996. These continue to run as separate
services.
FAST Search Status: Supported
Formerly called All The Web, FAST Search aims to index the entire
web. It was the first search engine to break the 200 million web page
index milestone. The Norwegian company behind FAST Search also powers
the Lycos MP3 search engine. FAST Search launched in May 1999.
Go / Infoseek Status: Supported
Go is a portal site produced by Infoseek and Disney. It offers portal
features such as personalization and free e-mail, plus the search
capabilities of the former Infoseek search service, which has now been
folded into Go. Searchers will find that Go consistently provides
quality results in response to many general and broad searches, thanks
to its ESP search algorithm. It also has an impressive human-compiled
directory of web sites. Go officially launched in January 1999. It is
not related to GoTo, below. The former Infoseek service launched in
early 1995.
GoTo Status: NOT Supported
Unlike the other search engines, GoTo sells its listings. Companies
can pay money to be placed higher in the search results, which GoTo
feels improves relevancy. Non-paid results come from Inktomi. GoTo
launched in 1997 and incorporated the former University of
Colorado-based World Wide Web Worm. In February 1998, it shifted to
its current pay-for-placement model and soon after replaced the WWW
Worm with Inktomi for its non-paid listings. GoTo is not related to
Go, above.
Google Status: Supported
Google is a search engine that makes heavy use of link popularity as a
primary way to rank web sites. This can be especially helpful in
finding good sites in response to general searches such as "cars" and
"travel," because users across the web have in essence voted for good
sites by linking to them.
HotBot Status: Supported
Like AltaVista, HotBot is another favorite among researchers due to
its large index of the web and many power searching features. In most
cases, HotBot's first page of results comes from the Direct Hit
service (see above), and then secondary results come from the Inktomi
search engine, which is also used by other services. It gets its
directory information from the Open Directory project (see
below). HotBot launched in May 1996 as Wired Digital's entry into the
search engine market. Lycos purchased Wired Digital in October 1998
and continues to run HotBot as a separate search service.
Inktomi Status: Supported
Originally, there was an Inktomi search engine at UC Berkeley. The
creators then formed their own company with the same name and created
a new Inktomi index, which was first used to power HotBot. Now the
Inktomi index also powers several other services. All of them tap into
the same index, though results may be slightly different. This is
because Inktomi provides ways for its partners to use a common index
yet distinguish themselves. There is no way to query the Inktomi index
directly, as it is only made available through Inktomi's partners with
whatever filters and ranking tweaks they may apply.
LookSmart Status: NOT supported (directory)
How to submit to LookSmart
LookSmart is a human-compiled directory of web sites. In addition to
being a stand-alone service, LookSmart provides directory results to
MSN Search, Excite and many other partners. AltaVista provides
LookSmart with search results when a search fails to find a match from
among LookSmart's reviews. LookSmart launched independently in October
1996, was backed by Reader's Digest for about a year, and then company
executives bought back control of the service.
Lycos Status: Supported!
Lycos started out as a search engine, depending on listings that came
from spidering the web. In April 1999, it shifted to a directory model
similar to Yahoo. Its main listings come from the Open Directory
project, and then secondary results come from either Direct Hit or
Lycos' own spidering of the web. In October 1998, Lycos acquired the
competing HotBot search service, which continues to be run separately.
MSN Search Status: Partial Support via AltaVista and Direct hit
Microsoft's MSN Search service is a LookSmart-powered directory of web
sites, with secondary results that come from AltaVista. RealNames and
Direct Hit data is also made available. MSN Search also offers a
unique way for Internet Explorer 5 users to save past searches.
Netscape Search Status: Partial support from Google
Netscape Search's results come primarily from the Open Directory and
Netscape's own "Smart Browsing" database, which does an excellent job
of listing "official" web sites. Secondary results come from
Google. At the Netscape Netcenter portal site, other search engines
are also featured.
Northern Light Status: Supported!
Northern Light is another favorite search engine among researchers. It
features one of the largest indexes of the web, along with the ability
to cluster documents by topic. Northern Light also has a set of
"special collection" documents that are not readily accessible to
search engine spiders. There are documents from thousands of sources,
including newswires, magazines and databases. Searching these
documents is free, but there is a charge of up to $4 to view
them. There is no charge to view documents on the public web -- only
for those within the special collection. Northern Light opened to
general use in August 1997.
Open Directory Status: NOT supported, Directory
The Open Directory uses volunteer editors to catalog the web. Formerly
known as NewHoo, it was launched in June 1998. It was acquired by
Netscape in November 1998, and the company pledged that anyone would
be able to use information from the directory through an open license
arrangement. Netscape itself was the first licensee. Lycos and AOL
Search also make heavy use of Open Directory data, while AltaVista and
HotBot prominently feature Open Directory categories within their
results pages.
RealNames Status: NOT Supported
The RealNames system is meant to be an easier-to-use alternative to
the current web site addressing system. Those with RealNames-enabled
browsers can enter a word like "Nike" to reach the Nike web site. To
date, RealNames has had its biggest success through search engine
partnerships. In particular, it is strongly featured in results at
AltaVista, Go and MSN Search.
Snap Status: NOT Supported (directory)
Snap is a human-compiled directory of web sites, supplemented by
search results from Inktomi. Like LookSmart, it aims to challenge
Yahoo as the champion of categorizing the web. Snap launched in late
1997 and is backed by Cnet and NBC.
WebCrawler Status: Supported
WebCrawler has the smallest index of any major search engine on the
web -- think of it as Excite Lite. The small index means WebCrawler is
not the place to go when seeking obscure or unusual material. However,
some people may feel that by having indexed fewer pages, WebCrawler
provides less overwhelming results in response to general
searches. WebCrawler opened to the public on April 20, 1994. It was
started as a research project at the University of Washington. America
Online purchased it in March 1995 and was the online service's
preferred search engine until Nov. 1996. That was when Excite, a
WebCrawler competitor, acquired the service. Excite continues to run
WebCrawler as an independent search engine.
Yahoo Status: NOT supported (directory)
Yahoo is the web's most popular search service and has a well-deserved
reputation for helping people find information easily. The secret to
Yahoo's success is human beings. It is the largest human-compiled
guide to the web, employing about 150 editors in an effort to
categorize the web. Yahoo has over 1 million sites listed. Yahoo also
supplements its results with those from Inktomi. If a search fails to
find a match within Yahoo's own listings, then matches from Inktomi
are displayed. Inktomi matches also appear after all Yahoo matches
have first been shown. Yahoo is the oldest major web site directory,
having launched in late 1994.