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There are thousands of Search Engines and Directories on the Internet. It's wise to choose main search engines and directories as your objective and submit your web site to these search services.
The top 10 search engines:
Google
Ask Web power users, and they'll tell you that Google is the best search
engine, bar none. This unassuming, bare-bones engine returns accurate
search results at lightning speed. Google scores the highest relevancy
rating and returned the lowest number of broken links of all the sites
we looked at.
Even better, Google's cache function is excellent. When Google scours the Web to index sites, it automatically saves a copy of each page it finds. So, if a link you need no longer exists on the Web, simply click Show Matches, and Google will show you the last saved version of the page.
AltaVista
AltaVista's no-frills interface and fast engine once made it the most
popular search tool among Web-savvy surfers. But recently, AltaVista has
transformed into a cluttered portal, losing many of its core users to
Google. (To win some back, AltaVista recently launched a second, search-only
site, Raging Search.)
Still, AltaVista's search engine is pretty effective. In our testing, it rated lower than MSN and Lycos but higher than Yahoo and Netscape in terms of relevancy. Furthermore, we love AltaVista's extras, such as the four tabs above the Search field that help you look specifically for MP3s, images, or videos. If you want a reliable and fast search engine, AltaVista's one of the best. For the full portal experience, however, you're better off with Yahoo.
Metacrawler
Metacrawler is not really a search engine. It is a meta search engine,
which means it searches other engines for their best results. This is
by far the best meta-engine on the web, because it sorts the results attained
from the search engines according to its own criteria for relevance. Use
this site for general results and very vague queries.
Microsoft Network (MSN)
MSN gets tons of traffic because it's Internet Explorer's default start
page. Fortunately, Microsoft's portal is up to the challenge. In our tests,
MSN's proprietary search engine returned a greater number of relevant,
non-redundant links than most of its competitors (including Yahoo). In
addition, the results page lets you save specific matches to revisit later.
But the site does suffer from a common affliction: too much content on
one page and small type makes it difficult to read.
Lycos
Lycos is an old favourite on the web and is still quite popular. Lycos
works a little differently from its competition: whereas most search sites
display results by relevancy (the frequency with which your search word
appears on a Web page), Lycos displays the most-visited sites at the top
of the list; it's a virtual popularity contest. Unfortunately, not all
of these links will work for you. Lycos has a fast search engine and uncluttered
user interface. It's not the best search site around, but it's an adequate
backup site if your favourite search engine drops the ball.
Infoseek
More than seven out of every ten hits listed by Infoseek's engine were
on target--the best score of any of the seven sites. And this engine further
solidified its first-place hold by delivering a low number of broken links
(about three for every 100 found pages) and virtually no duplicates. Just
don't plan to conduct sophisticated searches. Although Infoseek finds
pages quickly, it eschews a separate power search function.
Excite
This search engine has long been a favourite amongst web users. However,
its popularity is declining because of its cluttered front end, and because
of the mediocrity of its results. However, because of the lingering popularity
of this site, you should register here.
Iwon
Although a relatively new engine, it is continually gaining popularity
because of its attractive (but still cluttered) interface and ease of
use. The results are accurate and fast, but do not match those of Google.
Registration is simple, but hard to find on the page. The link to registration
is in the top right corner of their home page.
Go.com
Go.com allows you to restrict your search to images and audio/video files,
which comes in handy. The site also includes a directory, which has been
the trend for many search engines of late. The returns rank sites in terms
of relevance but the results are still somewhat mediocre. However, the
site is used by many people, and should be on this list.
Hotbot
HotBot's extraordinarily flexible tools make it easy to construct complex
searches right from the home page. You can click links in HotBot's navigational
sidebar to perform quick searches for Web sites, newsgroups, domain names,
news, and shareware. Each search category presents its own page, with
options. If you search Web sites, for example, you can designate the type
of search--by phrase, URL, title, or even boolean operator -- and set
the desired date ranges, geographical area, and media type by clicking
buttons and selecting from short menus.
