Fast Access to :
Answers.com   Ask.com   Bing   Exalead   Gigablast   Google   Intelways   Ixquick   Jux2
Kosmix   Scandoo   Snap   Vivisimo   Yahoo!

The overlap between the major search engines is not as great as most people think. According to a recent study, on average, only 3.5 of Yahoo!'s top 10 results were in Google's top 10, and vice versa. This is due in part to the different coverages of their databases -- no search engine indexes more than a fraction of the available pages -- and in part to the differences in the methods they use to rank the results. Use this page to explore the features and usefulness of a variety of major search engines you may not already be familiar with.

Answers.com
A search service devoted to providing direct answers, not just links, to search queries. Taking it's content from over 100 encyclopedias, dictionaries, glossaries, atlases and other sources, it generates an organized page of relevant information without requiring you to click on any further Web links. "Best of the Web" links, however, may still be included.

Ask.com
Formerly called Ask Jeeves, this search engine has made major improvements over the last few years and released a new interface in February 2006. It features a toolbox on the right side that provides access to a variety of search tools including maps, images, weather, dictionary, local and desktop search. The mapping function is more sophisticated than those offered by Google and the other major search engines and uses arial photographs rather than satelite.The Encyclopedia search extends the "direct answers" Ask has provided for several years with its "smart search" feature by providing content from Wikipedia, Houghton Mifflin and Columbia encyclopedias right at the top of a result page. It also provides suggestions for broadening or narrowing your search.

Bing
MSN has totally redesigned Live Search to create Bing. It is designed to make the most helpful information stand out from the rest & it adds it's own information in addition to the web search results, including articles from Encarta & 9 trusted medical sources like the Mayo Clinic and Mediline Plus. The web results are shown in the middle column ∧ if you run the cursor down just to the right of them, you get a preview that may save you the time of going to a useless page. There are other time savers. A video search results in thumbnails of the videos which start playing where you pass your cursor over them. There is an "explore pane" on the left which suggests related searches and for some searches, categories. Searching a car model gives you categories like reviews, dealers, manual, used, etc. The results of an image search are displayed cleanly without text. Rolling over one gives the dimensions & file size, a link to the image & a show similar images option.

Exalead
Althought smaller than Google or Yahoo, it offers far more sophisticated search options, including proximity searching, true truncation, limitation by language, approximate and phonetic spelling options, fuzzy searching, and others. It indexes Text (.txt.), Word (.doc), Acrobat (pdf.), Excel (.xls), PowerPoint (.ppt), Rich Text Format (.rtf) WordPerfect (.wpd) and Flash documents (.swf). The results screen include listings of related terms, related categories and web site location as well as snapshots of the pages retrieved. Clickable option to search Wikipedia & customizable search page with links of your choice.

GIGABLAST
In ranking search results Gigablast gives less emphasis to links between pages and more to the occurrence of search terms and their proximity, particularly phrases. Its patent-pending "publication date detection" algorithms estimate the date that a particular page was first published or most recently edited or modified. The search results can be resorted to display by date rather than the default of relevancy ranking. GigaBits , representing key themes and topics related to the search, are listed at the top of the results page and clicking on them adds them to the search, making it a fast way to narrow a search with too many results. Gigablast is the only search engine indexing meta tags beyond just the meta description that some others index. Allows you to create your own topic-specific search engines with p to 500 websites. There are no sponsored links or banner ads. Advanced search form available. See Gigablast help page

GOOGLE
The pre-eminent search engine, indexing more than 8 billion pages and with relevance ranking of search results based on linkages and authority. It provides cached "snapshots" of each site as it appeared when indexed, which can be useful you're looking for a page that no longer exists. It covers web pages, PDF and Word documents and other formats, but only indexes about the first 100K of each. Beta versions of new search services under development can be found on the Google Labs site.

Intelways
Not a meta-search engine but a fast way to access hundreds of search engines from one page just entering your search terms once. Each search is performed separately and you can quickly switch search engines to compare the results. Type in your search terms in the upper left, then pick a category and it displays lot of different search engines to click on good for that category. You can change categories & get new groups of search engines & directories to try without having to input your terms again.

IXQUICK
Meta-search engine that can be searched in a variety of languages. The search engines chosen for each language are supposed to reflect the needs of each language group. You can specify Web, MP3, newsgroup or picture searches. Searches All the Web, Ask Jeeves/Teoma, EntireWeb, FindWhat, Gigablast, Go, LookSmart, MSN, Netscape, Open Directory, Overture, WiseNut and Yahoo. Ranks the results by how many search engine hits each produce. The use of Boolean operators, wildcards and other features can be found under "Hints and help" on the About IxQuick Search page.

JUX2
Use this meta search engine to compare the search results for Google, Yahoo! and MSN performing just one search. It both blends the combined results using it's own ranking system and allows you to see the results of the specific search engines, displaying what links are unique to each and which each missed that the others found.

Kosmix
It displays the search results in categories, not by popularity, including at a glance, reference, news & blogs, study guides, videos, audio, images, web search, even Tweets & discussion groups. Plus a box with related topics and questions & answers from several social search sites. Good for getting an overview of what is available on a topic.

SCANDOO
Allows you to use Google, Yahoo, MSN or Ask, and scans & alerts you to viruses or spyware on the resulting web-sites. Safe sites are marked with a green check mark, potentially dangerous ones with a red warning sign, Websites that directly attack the user's computer are marked with a black spider logo. Additional categories, such as hate and discrimination, illegal activities, nudity, etc. can be selected and saved to create a more customized filter.

SNAP
Launched in October 2004, Snap immediately begins sorting, filtering, and presenting results when you start typing in an enquiry. It brings specific word matches to the top and eliminates results that do not match. Instead of relying on computer algorithms to rank search results, it uses click-stream information from a network of one million Internet users, recording and processing which Web sites these users spend time on and which sites they quickly leave.

VIVISIMO
Meta search engine developed at Carnegie Mellon. It clusters related documents and provides three options for viewing search results but does not rank the documents for relevancy. Use the advanced search option to customize search and display. It provides a good overview of a topic but may not be the fastest way to find a specific answer.

YAHOO!
Yahoo! switched to its own search technology in 2004 and its database indexes an estimated 4.2 billion pages. This is a smaller number than Google's, but Yahoo indexes to a depth of 500K while Google only indexes the first 101K and in some cases only indexes the link, not the page.See Yahoo search help. Also maintains a site geared to children, Yahooligans, which includes simplified introductions to the Internet.