Erica Plappert’s BEST OF SEARCH ENGINES page

And the awards go to…

BEST OVERALL SEARCH ENGINE - GOOGLE - Google’s search index covers more than 3 billion URL’s, resulting in one of the most comprehensive search engines on the Web. Furthermore, Google shows excerpts from the web pages instead of summaries which allow for more relevant results. The search results were organized and thorough. http://www.google.com

RUNNER UP – YAHOO!

– Yahoo! offers many ways to personalize its page allowing each individual user to see topics of interest whenever they log on. Yahoo! is exceptionally strong in its news coverage and its search results are quick and thorough. http://www.yahoo.com

BEST METASEARCH ENGINE – WEBCRAWLER – WebCrawler is one of my favorites and has been around since I began using the Internet in 1995. Since it searches multiple websites quickly, the results are extremely comprehensive. http://www.webcrawler.com

RUNNER UP – DOGPILE – Dogpile and WebCrawler are very similar since they both search multiple search engines at once to find many results quickly. Though the information is a little more difficult to sift through on Dogpile, the results are still comprehensive and relevant. In addition, the search engine’s mascot, Arfie, is adorable. http://www.dogpile.com/index.gsp

BEST NEWS SEARCH ENGINE – THREE WAY TIE – GOOGLE, MSN, and YAHOO! – All three of these search engines offer their own news headlines and feature breaking news stories throughout the day. Yahoo! even includes news photographs that accompany search results. MSN has a strong partnership with MSNBC news page. Furthermore, the search results are from reputable news sources such as the Associated Press and CNN.

http://www.google.com, http://www.msn.com, http://www.yahoo.com

BEST IMAGE SEARCH ENGINE – ALTAVISTA - I ranked AltaVista high in almost every area. Yet, this search engine outperformed all of the others I tested in image related searches. Though paging through all of the results may be overwhelming, the possibilities seem almost endless. http://www.altavista.com

RUNNER UP – TWO WAY TIE – DOGPILE and WEBCRAWLER – Both search engines resulted in the same results which were extensive. These web pages are a great resource for anyone searching for images. http://www.dogpile.com/index.gsp, http://www.webcrawler.com

WORST SEARCH ENGINE – NORTHERN LIGHT –I ranked this web page the lowest of all the ones I tested, because it is not a search engine that should be used for typical searches. Yet, if you are looking for content from newspapers or journals, this site may be an option for you. Unfortunately, the results are brief summaries in which you must pay to see the longer version. http://www.northernlight.com

RUNNER UP – WISENUT – What can I say? This search engine just seemed to be a hit or miss. It performed well with some searches and poorly with others. There are so many consistently good search engines that I would not recommending wasting time with this one. In addition, I found it to be much slower than other search engines. http://www.wisenut.com

THE RANKINGS – Click here to take a look at the searches that I performed, the 21 search engines I tested, and the rankings that I gave each engine.