How to use this guide

The way to find what you need on the Web is to use the right tool and, of course, use an appropriate strategy. To learn more about the tools available, click the "about" categories on the left. Click "Go" to go directly to the search tool.

We're not attempting to list all the search tools available, just a few of the most useful within some major categories. There are some popular search engines that have been intentionally excluded because they offer no important advantages for the average surfer over the ones already listed.

= A best bet tool.

Simplify Your Life
The cool thing about meta searches is that they can save you lots of time. Rather than use search engines one a time, a meta search queries several search engines at once. A good meta search tools then clean up the results, removing bad, inappropriate, and duplicate links. So simplify your life, let meta searches do the work.

Other meta search engines: debriefing.com, savvysearch.com and dogpile.com

MetaCrawler    For many situations, it's the best all around tool. Start with MetaCrawler and, in general, you will find what you need . It uses a good assortment of search engines: Yahoo!, Excite, Webcrawler, Infoseek, AltaVista, and MiningCompany.  It's also a pretty decent small directory offering categories including: Computing, Education, Entertainment, Finance, Games, Health, News, Shopping, Sports, People Finder, and Travel. Two other unique services are:

MiniCrawler - keeps a small search window open all the time.
MetaSpy - shows what keywords people are searching on right now.

Ask Jeeves    The most user friendly search tool period. Jeeves uses a nice assortment of search engines, checks your spelling, and offers advice on how to improve your results.

ProFusion    This is the power user's meta search. ProFusion offers all the bells and whistles for an advanced search and may be useful for very narrow controlled searches. Unfortunately, the results are often not as desirable as with MetaCrawler.

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Search by Category
Directories list and organize Web sites by category. They are most useful for identifying services and resources in an uncluttered fashion. Think of them as an analog to the Yellow Pages only they aren't limited to businesses.

How is a directory different from a search engine? Directories list only the entry page to site. They do not index or "spider" pages within a site. This means that if the information you really need is on a page other than the main page, you may never find it.

You should understand that directories can have search engine features as well. For example, if you perform a search on Yahoo! and the subject you are requesting is not in its directory, Yahoo! then looks to HotBot's indexes for the requested content. In order to know you are gaining the advantages of using a directory, first try clicking through the categories listed.

Search Regionally
The best directories offer the convenience of regional categories. If you're looking for local content or if you're trying to locate regional directories, Yahoo! and LookSmart may be your best bet. If you're looking for local/regional entertainment, try AOL's Digital City with local cities like Baltimore or  Washington.

Yahoo!   Simply the king of the directories. Yahoo! is the most used tool for finding things on the Web. That's because Yahoo! is a terrific tool. It lacks the depth of a search engine but offers a cleaner look at the Web. What makes Yahoo! so effective? They use real live humans to create its categories and place sites within those categories. Every page is reviewed by a Yahoo! editor before being added to its directory.

LookSmart    Yahoo!'s closest rival. LookSmart, originally owned by Reader's Digest, is a newer and very clean directory. Like Yahoo!, only humans review and categorize the Web sites.

Snap   Worth a look A big advertising budget and big money backing don't necessarily make for a good directory.

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Search Engines rummage through the cyber jungles to assemble a monster database that can be indexed and organized. The usual strategy is to use spiders to crawl through all the pages they can find. The pages are indexed based on content found within each page. Users then search through these indexes to find what they need.

AltaVista  Best for complex searches--favorite of researchers. AltaVista indexes every word on every page it can get to. The result, the biggest universe is to be found in AltaVista's banks. Not for sissy users, to get the most from AltaVista, or rather the least (the problem is with searching narrowly enough to make results manageable) read the fine print and use the advanced search features. Northern Lights, a supposed rising star, ambitiously uses an AltaVista-like model of  sophistication and size. It has an interesting interface that allows you to carefully refine your search criteria. It may be worth a try if you're searching very narrowly within a hard to find subject. Results seem to be less satisfactory than with AltaVista.

HotBot The up-and-coming search engine. Has replaced AltaVista as the Yahoo! "spillover" search engine. And now is considered the best search engine by many independent evaluators.

AOL NetFind Pretty nearly just Excite behind the scenes. Includes a nice, service-oriented directory.

Excite Huge and powerful search tool. Excite offers a great clipping service that monitors the news you request and notifies you when a relevant article is found.

Infoseek / Go   Now backed by Disney, Infoseek is being made over to be hipper and more up-to-date.

GoTo   Features simplicity. A newer player and possibly a good source for fresh content. Be warned, search relevancy decisions are now made on a fee-for-ranking basis. Let the bidding begin.

Lycos   A recent focus on improved porthole features. No longer considered one of the best search engines.

Netscape Search Pretty nearly just Excite behind the scenes. Offers a strong one-location search center and a useful tools-oriented directory.

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Yahoo! People Finder Not the largest but apparently the most up to date people resource. Same as Four11.com.

Switchboard Comprehensive but they've never come up with a way to purge old data.

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Ask Jeeves for Kids   Jeeves does it all. It makes suggestions to explore related topics and has a fair amount of its own encyclopedic content.

Yahooligans!    The folks from Yahoo bring their directory expertise to a kids directory.

Infoseek/Disney Kids    Keep your eyes on this one. The new kids on the Internet block will eventually figure out a way to be masters of this neighborhood.

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NetworkSolutions Whois Deserves a category of its own. Whois from Network Solutions is the InterNIC domain database. If you can't find a company's domain through a search but remember the company name, searching Network Solutions is a sure fire way to learn who hosts it, who owns it, and who administers it. This database covers the categories .com, .net, and .org. If you are planning to create your own domain, searching the InterNIC database is the only way to be sure the domain is available.

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