| A meta search engine (also know as multi-threaded engine) is a search tool
that sends your query simultaneously to several search engines (SEs), Web
directories (WDs) and sometimes to the so-called Invisible (Deep) Web, a
collection of online information not indexed by traditional search engines. After collecting the results, the meta search engine (MSE) will remove the
duplicate links and, according to its algorithm, combine/rank the results into a
single merged list.
An important note: Unlike the individual search engines and
directories, the meta search engines:
- Do not have their own databases and
- Do not accept URL submissions.
Pros and Cons of Meta Search Engines
Pros: MSEs save searchers a considerable amount of time by sparing them the
trouble of running a query in each search engine. The results - most of the time
- are extremely relevant. MSEs can be used by Webmasters to find their site's
presence, rankings and
link popularity in the major SEs.
Cons: Because some SEs or WDs do not support advanced searching techniques
such as quotation marks to enclose phrases or Boolean operators, no (or
irrelevant) results from those SEs will appear in the MSEs results list when
those techniques are used.
|
MSEs Come In Four
Flavors: |
- "Real" MSEs which aggregate/rank the
results in one page
- "Pseudo" MSEs type I which exclusively
group the results by search engine
- "Pseudo" MSEs type II which open a
separate browser window for each search engine used and
- Search Utilities, software search tools.
The following provides detailed information on each of the four MSE types,
along with my ranking:
"Real" MSEs
These real MSEs simultaneously search the major search engines, aggregate the
results, eliminate the duplicates and return the most relevant matches,
according to the engine's algorithm.
Following is a list of a few meta search engines that you might find useful.
It's by no means complete, but it might help you find what you need.
(The criteria I used to determine the best MSEs were:
the amount and the relevance of the results,
the capability to handle advanced searches,
the ability to enable users to customize searches,
the speed of their searches and others.)
ez2www [ http://ez2www.com ]
Searches the best SEs - AlltheWeb, Google, AltaVista, Teoma, Wisenut - and
directories - Yahoo! and Open Directory.
Through its "Advanced Search" function it also searches a
small part of the Invisible (Deep) Web.
It also searches news, newsgroups, MP3, images and many, many more.
Provides excellent results in a very neat interface. Created in September
2000 by the French search engine developer Holomedia. THE best!
Vivísimo [ http://vivisimo.com ]
Uses the clustering technology, meaning matches are organized in folders.
Don't like the frames? Just modify the size of both the upper and the left
frames. This MSE was created by researchers at Carnegie-Mellon University.
Advanced searching options available: exact phrase, Boolean operators,
fields searching (domain, host, title, URL, etc.) and more. A jewel
for the serious searcher.
Query Server [ http://www.queryserver.com/web.htm
]
Searches an impressive list of 11 SEs - everything important except Google.
But don't worry: Query Server searches Yahoo!, Netscape and AOL, all partially
powered by Google. This is another example of the clustering technology.
Highly customizable metasearch tool. You can modify the appearance of
the results page, selecting the search engines, the amount of results, their
timeout, etc. It supports quotation marks to enclose phrases,
the Boolean syntax and parentheses. Very professional.
Infonetware [ http://www.infonetware.com
]
Searches the Web and provides relevant results, organized in topics, in a very
clean interface. This MSE is based in Edinburgh, Scotland and is a very good
tool.
Metaseek [ http://www.pcdigest.net/metasearch/en/main.shtml
]
Excellent MSE from Ukraine. Searches major international and local search
engines. Besides the Web you can search images, MP3, FTP files, news and more.
You can use "Phrase" (""), "natural language"
processing, Boolean logic and field searching (by URL, title, site/domain or
link). Very nice.
IBoogie [ http://iboogie.com ]
Uses a minimalist design. This MSE "performs intelligent clustering of
results". It searches the Web, the Invisible (Deep) Web, images, video
and audio files.
Vinden.NL [ http://www.vinden.nl ]
Searches "the best," providing very good results in a clean interface.
This MSE comes from the Netherlands.
Search Online [ http://www.searchonline.info
]
Uses an excellent selection of search engines and directories. This MSE
provides relevant results in a relatively crowded interface. For each result you
can see the search engine where the hit was found, and its ranking.
Meta Bear [ http://www.metabear.com ]
Provides relevant results from both international and Russian sites. Be sure
you type the query in the "Search The World" box.
Web Scout [ http://www.webscout.com ]
Searches the Web, news, newsgroups, auctions, MP3 files and jobs. This
Australian MSE utilizes the major SEs - except Google - and provides relevant
matches in a clean results list.
argosa:de [ http://www.argosa.de ]
Searches 17 international and local SEs. I suggest you avoid checking the boxes
of Acoon, Abacho, GoClick and ah_ha.com search engines, because they give many
irrelevant hits. This is Germany's first MSE, and provides excellent
results organized by relevance, source (quelle) or title.
Experts Avenue [ http://www.expertsavenue.com
]
Searches different search engines simultaneously for Web pages, auctions, jobs
and forums and provides very relevant results in a neat interface. Enables
online language translation of Web pages. Click on "Translate"
and you will be brought to AltaVista's
Babelfish translation service, powered by SYSTRAN.
InfoGrid [ http://www.infogrid.com ]
Provides excellent results in an easy to read layout, despite a very confusing
Home Page crowded and with frames. This MSE searches the "big ones"
including Google, AlltheWeb, Yahoo! and Open Directory. It also searches
newswires, auctions, discussion forums, MP3, FTP files and more. To avoid the
frames in the results list select the option "Open in the Current
Window".
Suchspider.de [ http://www.suchspider.de/meta-suchmaschinen
]
Searches a whopping 100 (!) international SEs and WDs. Google, AlltheWeb,
Open Directory, you name it. You can sort the results by relevance, source or -
much better - grouped by domain name. This "Meta-Suchmachine" is based
in Germany.
EmailPinoy [ http://www.emailpinoy.com
]
Sends your query to 15 search engines. Don't use Kanoodle, ah_ha.com and
GoClick pay-per-click search engines, because you'll get irrelevant results.
For better results enclose phrases in quotation marks. This MSE is from
the Philippines.
1 SECOND [ http://1second.com ]
Searches a good selection of 14 major SEs and WDs, throws out the duplicates
and summarizes the results in a neat listings page. Use the Advanced Search if
you want to customize the search, especially the timeout of the search
engines.
My Prowler [ http://myprowler.com ]
Searches over a dozen search engines, news, images, audio/MP3, music videos,
auctions and various other sites. Compiles the results, weeds out
irrelevant matches and
provides a summarized report. It accepts "natural language"
query.
Gimenei [ http://www.gimenei.com ]
Use of the "Advanced Search" option is strongly recommended. You
can customize the results page, including my favorite option, "All
Results" in one page. This is a comprehensive and fast MSE based in
Manhattan, New York.
Dug Dugi [ http://www.dugdugi.com ]
Queries the major search engines, collates the results, eliminates bad
information and aggregates the results in an ultra-clean layout. For each match
you'll get the search engine and the ranking of the page.
Search 66 [ http://search66.com ]
Groups together pages from the same domain. Beautiful. To avoid SEs
timeouts, select the "Speed": "Comprehensive". Obviously,
you'll get more results from this excellent
Australian MSE.
Besides the very good MSEs listed above, there are also some others that are
worth a try:
Internav [ http://internav.com ],
NetXplorer [ http://www.netxplorer.de ]
(Germany),
Aaise [ http://www.aaise.com/meta ],
Metengine [ http://www.metengine.com ]
(Antigua),
One2Seek [ http://www.one2seek.com ],
Fossick [ http://www.fossick.com/Search.htm
] (Australia),
Pandia [ http://www.pandia.com/powersearch/index.html
] (Norway),
meta EUREKA [ http://www.metaeureka.com
] (Netherlands),
Widow [ http://www.widow.com ],
VROOSH! [ http://www.vroosh.com ] (Canada),
Meta 360 [ http://meta360.com ],
7 Meta Search [ http://7metasearch.com ],
Metor [ http://www.metor.com ]
(Germany)
and Ixquick [ http://www.ixquick.com
].
The following is a list of some unimpressive meta search engines. These MSEs
do not provide the breadth of coverage offered by the sites recommended above.
Each of these has its own flawed characteristics, but generally they are old and
have not kept up with
the latest capabilities or they suffer from too many functional problems.
Metacrawler [ http://www.metacrawler.com
],
Dogpile [ http://www.dogpile.com ],
C4 (formerly Cyber 411) [ http://www.c4.com ],
Mamma [ http://www.mamma.com ] (Canada),
Pro Fusion [ http://www.profusion.com ],
moonmist [ http://www.moonmist.info ]
(UK),
Bytedog [ http://www.bytedog.com ]
(Canada),
il motore [ http://www.ilmotore.com ]
(Italy),
METASEEK.NL [ http://www.metaseek.nl ]
(Netherlands) and
ApocalX [ http://search.apocalx.com ]
(France).
2. "Pseudo" MSEs Type I
The type I "Pseudo" MSE sends the query to the search engines, and
then presents the results grouped by search engine in one long, easy to read
scrollable list. Be careful.
Based on how many SEs you select, the waiting time can be very long. Some people
might find these MSEs useful, however.
The best MSEs in this category are:
Mall Agent [ http://www.mallagent.com/web.html
], which provides results from 38 SEs and WDs,
qb Search [ http://www.qbsearch.com/ ]
(from 17),
Better Brain [ http://www.betterbrain.com/
] (12),
My Net Crawler [ http://www.mynetcrawler.com/
] (12),
NBCi [ http://nbci.msnbc.com ] (11),
Planet Search (Sherlock Hound)
[ http://www.planetsearch.com/ ]
(10),
Rede Search [ http://www.redesearch.com/
] (8),
1 BLINK [ http://www.1blink.com/ ] (7),
Search Wiz [ http://www.searchwiz.com ]
(6) and
Search Fido [ http://www.searchfido.com
] from 4 SEs and WDs.
3) "Pseudo" MSEs Type II
There are two types of Type II "Pseudo" MSEs:
a) You type your query one time and then select the search engines. One
browser window will open for each SE selected. The best are:
Multi-Search-Engine.com [http://www.multi-search-engine.com] which opens 36
windows,
GoGettem [ http://www.gogettem.com ] (30),
Search Bridge [ http://www.searchbridge.com
] (24),
The Info [ http://www.theinfo.com ] (15)
and
Net Depot [ http://www.netdepot.org ]
(15).
b) You choose the SE, type the query in the SE' form and a new window will
open. Every search engine has its own query form. Many users will find these
window-opening MSEs
annoying. The best of this type are:
Alpha Seek [ http://www.alfaseek.com ],
Westlaser [ http://www.westlaser.com/ ],
Dan's No Overhead Search Thingy [ http://www.danielc.com/thingy.html
],
Express Find [ http://www.expressfind.com
] and
Freeality [ http://www.freeality.com/meta.htm
] .
4) Search Utilities (also called Desktop Search Applications)
These are downloadable meta search tools that search multiple search engines.
Results are collated and ranked for relevancy with redundancies removed. They
are not free but most of them have a free trial version available. The
price? A few dozen dollars. The most popular are:
BullsEye [ http://www.intelliseek.com/
],
Copernic [ http://www.copernic.com/ ],
LexiBot (formerly know as Mata Hari) [ http://lexibot.com
],
WebFerret [ http://www.zdnet.com/ferret/index.html
] and
WolfBot [ http://www.wolfbot.com/ ].
Conclusions:
Now, you might ask yourself: If MSEs are so good, do we still need the
search engines?
Well, it depends. I use a search engine - yup, Google - when I search for
general information.
I use a meta search engine when I'm looking for a unique or obscure search
term or if I want to make an in-depth analysis of what's out there on a specific
subject.
My suggestion is to find some time and give a test drive to the MSEs; you
might fall in love with these lesser-known search tools. And next time you use
your search engine of choice, remember that there are search tools that can
provide you many more relevant results.
Good luck with your searches!
|
