portal planet major search engine listing

The sites listed below are the major search engines. Why are they considered to be the major search engines? they are all well known and receive a lot of traffic.

Some of the sites listed below are actually directories. the major difference between a directory and a search engine is that in a directory all of the pages are complied my humans. Some of the search engines offer both a directory service and also a search engine service.

alltheweb.com (fast)

An excellent crawler-based search engine, all the web provides both comprehensive coverage of the web and outstanding relevancy. If you tried google and didn't find it, all the web should probably be next on your list. It's a first stop search engine, for some.

altavista

Altavista is the oldest crawler-based search engine on the web. It opened in December 1995 and for several years was the "google" of its day, in terms of providing relevant results and having a loyal group of users that loved the service.

aol search

AOL search provides users with editorial listings that come google's crawler-based index. The same search on google and aol search will come up with very similar matches. Why would you use aol search? primarily because you are an aol user. The "internal" version of aol search provides links to content only available within the aol online service. In this way, you can search aol and the entire web at the same time. The "external" version lacks these links. Why wouldn't you use aol search? if you like google, many of google's features such as "cached" pages are not offered by aol search.

google

Twice-voted "most outstanding search engine" by search engine watch readers, google has a well-deserved reputation as the top choice for those searching the web. The crawler-based service provides both comprehensive coverage of the web along with great relevancy. It is highly recommended as a first stop in your hunt for whatever you are looking for.

inktomi

inktomi is unusual in that it is the only major search engine on this page that does not offer its own search site. If you go to the inktomi site listed above, you'll only find company information, not the ability to search the web. Instead, inktomi prefers to be solely a "behind-the-scenes" partner for other search engines that need results, such as msn search.

lycos

Lycos is one of the oldest search engines on the web, launched in 1994. It ceased crawling the web for its own listings in april 1999 and instead uses crawler-based results provided by fast (see above). So why bother with lycos rather than using fast's own alltheweb.com site? you might like some of the features that lycos provides.

msn search

Microsoft is known for constantly reworking its software products until they get them right, and msn search is a shining example of the company putting that same effort into an online product. In particular, the company has its own team of editors that monitors the most popular searches being performed and then hand-picks sites that are believed to be the most relevant. After performing a search, "popular topics" shown below the search box on the results page are also suggestions built largely by editors to guide you into making a more refined search. When appropriate, search results may also feature links to encyclopedia content from microsoft encarta or news headlines, at the top of the page.

open directory

the open directory uses volunteer editors to catalog the web. Formerly known as newhoo, it was launched in june 1998. It was acquired by aol time warner-owned netscape in november 1998, and the company pledged that anyone would be able to use information from the directory through an open license arrangement.

yahoo

launched in 1994, yahoo is the web's oldest "directory," a place where human editors organize web sites into categories. However, in october 2002, yahoo made a giant shift to using google's crawler-based listings for its main results.