Top Search Engines
by
Heath Hallman

Below you will find the best search engines (in my opinion)on the web based on random searching and careful evaluation of content quality. There are five catagories of search engine which I am evaluating:
Meta-Search, News Search, Image-search, Web Directory, and Best Overall Search Engine.

Meta-Search Engine:
        A Meta-search engine is an engine that searches for a keyword or phrase on a number of other search engines. They do tend to be sloppy about it though, and if your phrase is too complicated they can overlook valuable hits. There are some good ones, however. Here are my top two:
        1. Ixquick.com -  Fairly new engine; claims to be quickest growing on the web.  Remote search option allows users to keep a small window open while browsing to ease in searching. http://www.ixquick.com/
        2. Dogpile.com - This metasearch is good because it gives the user the most options when deciding which search engines will be used during the search. - http://www.dogpile.com/

News Search Engine:
                A news search engine does just that: it searches news services for information that the user is interested in.
          1. Yahoo News - This is a well-known news search that most people are familiar with. It includes large photos on the web page that enhance the headlines offered.http://dailynews.yahoo.com/
        2. Altavista News - This is a comprehensive news search that allows the user the option of selecting which news source to search, as well as region, date, and topic. http://www.altavista.com/news/default

Image Search Engine:
            An Image search engine looks for image files available on the net. (.gif and .jpg, for example)
           1. Google Image Search - Claims to be the most comprehensive search engine on the net. I can't find a reason to disagree. http://images.google.com/
            2. Alltheweb.com - Allows for interesting user options; such as, color search, type of background, and adult-content filtered or not. http://www.alltheweb.com/?cat=img&cs=utf-8&q=&_sb_lang=en

General Web Directories:
                A Web Directory is a general (or subject specific) search tool that is edited by humans. Results are hand selected and while that allows for greater relevancy when searching, it also limits the number of results found.
            1. Infomine - A directory of over 120,000 sites compiled cooperativly by librarians in California. http://infomine.ucr.edu/
            2. Librarian's Index to the Internet - A directory of more than 11,000 sources evaluated by librarians. Small number of sites, but great quality if you get a result. http://lii.org/

Best Overall Search Engine:
                These engines are invaluable tools when searching the Internet. They are the fastest, and give the greatest number of the most relevant results for a variety of subjects.
                1. Google.com - Simply the best. Is not an irritating "portal" site. Allows for advanced searching. When last checked searched over 3,083,324,652 web pages. Has neat browser bar feature that can be installed to allow searching at any time. http://www.google.com/
                2. Altavista - Best for exact searching. Offers to search for related topics once an initial search is complete. http://www.altavista.com/