Virtual Meta Search Information Page

Virtual Meta Search Information Page SEARCH ENGINE'S Also called spiders or crawlers constantly visit web sites on the Internet in order to create catalogs of web pages. They are able to follow links off web pages and index sites through them. Because they run automatically and index so many web pages, search engines may often find information not listed in directories. These are the main search engines on the net. Alta Vista Opened in Dec. 1995, AltaVista is run by Digital and has gained wide-spread name recognition. It also partnered with Yahoo in June 1996 Thunder Stone 1981 - Thunderstone - EPI Incorporated in California. 1994 - Web Interface to Texis Released and Webcrawler rewritten on Texis. 1995 - Webinator Web Walker released. 1997 - Thunderstone push-profiler tops 1,000,0000 queries per second and their Automatic Document Categorization engine was released. Lycos Around since May 1994, Lycos is one of the oldest of the major search engines. It began as a project at Carnegie Mellon University. The name Lycos comes from the Latin for "wolf spider." Excite Launched in late 1995, Excite grew quickly in prominence and has eaten two of its competitors. In July 1996, Excite purchased Magellan. In November 1996, it acquired WebCrawler. These continue to run as separate services. WebCrawler WebCrawler opened to the public on April 20, 1994. It was started as a research project at the University of Washington. America Online purchased it in March 1995 and was the online service's preferred search engine until Nov. 1996. That was when Excite, a WebCrawler competitor, acquired the service. Excite runs WebCrawler as an independent search engine. WebCrawler has an associated directory of reviewed sites, WebCrawler Select. InfoSeek Around since early 1995, Infoseek is well-known, well-reviewed and well-connected. The old "Infoseek Guide" index only had about 1 to 2 million URLs cataloged. In Fall 1996, the new service with 50 million URLs was introduced. DejaNews Founded in May 1995, Deja News, Inc. changed Internet history by providing the first search engine capable of organizing, indexing and archiving the content of the most powerful, and two-way communications medium of all time - Usenet newsgroups. The Deja News user interface provides users with an easy, powerful and free Web interface for searching the more than 20,000 active discussion groups, 180 gigabytes of information and 138 million articles in the Deja News database. Each month they serve 3.5 million unique users generating 75 million page views. read, search, participate in and subscribe to more than 50,000 discussion forums, including Usenet newsgroups. NorthernLight Northern Light opened to general use on Aug. 12, 1997. It is quickly becoming a premiere search engine. HotBot Launched in May 1996, HotBot is Wired's entry into the search engine market. The site is powered by the Inktomi search engine. That doesn't mean it is the same as the UC Berkeley Inktomi catalog, only that it uses the same technology that created that catalog. Scrub The Web Advanced Business Systems (Scrub The Web) launched their very first Internet site In 1995 which since then has had a tremendous response. Unlike many other search engines on the Net, they are constantly updating their database in Real-Time and purge old out-of-date listings every 90 days. Real-Time means that once a URL is entered in their database, it is immediately added (or updated if already on file) and available to anyone having Internet access.
META SEARCH ENGINE'S Meta search engines can query more than one search engine at a time. They then return the results and eliminate duplicate links. StartingPoint A free search and directory site that lets you navigate through the clutter intelligently. A powerful metasearcher that puts over 170 high-quality, popular, and comprehensive search tools - general and category specific - at your fingertips. MetaCrawler Go2net took over exclusive operation of the MetaCrawler from Netbot, Inc. in February, 1997, and was first released to the Net in June of 1995. It is one of the fastest and most useful metasearch tools on the Net. Dog Pile Search Excite, Yahoo, Lycos, ThunderStone, Webcrawler, GoTo, Magellan, PlanetSearch, What-U-Seek, InfoSeek, Point and AltaVista . Savvy Search Savvy Search - query nineteen search engines simultaneously (AltaVista, Excite, OpenText and most of the top engines, as well as DejaNews, Shareware.com, 411 People Finder, The Yellow Pages and other directories), it reveals the results in order of relevance, indicating which search engines contained which listings. If you check "integrate results," it removes duplicates, and provides a succinct summary of each of the findings. MetaFind Searches PlanetSearch, Excite, AltaVista, Infoseek and Webcrawler. Inference Headquartered in Novato, Calif., with international headquarters in Slough, UK. Mamma The idea started in 1996 to provide a smart meta search on the World Wide Web. Since then it has grown and expaned to include new research tools and play a role as a free content aggregator for Web users. Cyber411 Cyber411 is a parallel meta-search engine. You can now search up to 16 of the most popular search engines at the same time by entering a query string just once. The query is reformulated to fit the syntax of each search engine and the results are gathered, duplicate URLs are removed and the results displayed as they are received from the engines. Searches AltaVista, DejaNews, Excite, Galaxy, Goto, HotBot, LookSmart, Lycos, Magellan, NothernLight, PlanetSearch, Search.com, ThunderStone, Webcrawler, What-U-Seek and Yahoo. DIRECTORIES Unlike search engines, humans create directories. Sites must be submitted and assigned to an appropriate category or categories. Because of the human role, directories can often provide better results than search engines. Directories have organized and group sites together into categories making them most useful for browsing top sites, general searching and locating popular sites rather than for specific or academic searching. Yahoo Around since late 1994, Yahoo is the oldest major web site directory. Yahoo is well-known, well-used and well-respected. It is also the largest directory (as opposed to search engine), listing 500,000+ web sites, as of mid-1997. Are you looking for Web sites in a particular category? Yahoo is the premier subject directory on the Web, easy to navigate and comprehensive in its listings and additional features. , Yahoo presents 14 broad categories (such as computers/ internet, news and media, regional, society and culture), on its home page, which link to a large number of subcategorizes arranged in hierarchical order. Although Yahoo includes an enormous number of web sites, it is not ideal for all Internet searching. It does not search the full text of each page, and it frequently lists duplicates. Yahoo also accepts all pages submitted to it (or located by it), and does not rate sites - although it does indicate ones which it most recommends. Yahoo Yahoo's corporate disclaimer reads: "Other than determining categorization of subject matter at time of listing, Yahoo makes no attempt to review the content of sites listed in the directory, and so Yahoo isn't responsible for the accuracy, copyright compliance, legality or decency of material contained in sites listed in the Yahoo directory. Magellan Magellan rates and reviews many of its comprehensive listings, and includes a larger percentage of academic resources, as well as web sites, gopher, ftp, tenet, and newsgroup pages. In addition to English, you can also access it in French and German. The Magellan directory is organized into 26 primary topics (such as technology, spirituality, communications, daily lives, Kidzone, and pop culture), and dozens of sub categories. Within each division, you can browse, search the entire database, search rated and reviewed sites only, or specify green light sites - those which possess no "mature audience content." Rated sites are evaluated according to depth, ease of exploration and Net Appeal, and given 1-4 stars for a combination of these criteria. Point Are you looking for the top Web sites in a particular category? Of all the online directories which recommend sites, LYCOS Point TOP 5% may indeed be the easiest to navigate and read, and the most valuable for locating quality sites. Here you can find over 10,000 reviews of the best Web sites, as evaluated by Lycos/Pointcom. These reviews are browsable by category and rated on a scale of 1-50 according to Content, Presentation and Experience. You may browse them alphabetically, by date, or by any of the rating criteria. Although a search engine is available at Lycos, you may prefer to select from the sixteen categories of reviews, and from the hundreds of sub categories. Some categories are unique to Lycos - the Road Less Traveled, which covers spirituality and mysticism, Shopping which includes virtual malls, and Just for Kids, which rates children's entertainment and educational sites. Snap Powered by Inktomi, Snap has 16 major categories with hundreds of sub categories in its directory. PEOPLE PHONE & EMAIL These types of engines return related information in response to a persons name , phone number and email. Name format = John Doe Phone format is ###-###-#### Email format is [email protected] WhoWhere Type in a persons name to find out more information on them. Possible results may include Phone Number, Address, Email and URL. DataBase America Type in a phone number and you can get any information this engine tracks. Possible results may include Name, Address, Email and URL. WorldPages Banana Pages This site supports people, phone and email search's. Type in a persons name, phone number or email to find out more information on them. Type in a phone number and you can get any information this engine tracks. Type in an email address for information on it's owner. InfoSpace Type in a phone number and you can get any information this engine tracks. Possible results may include Name, Address, Email and URL. Finger at MIT Type in an email address for information on it's owner. Returns owners name. Press your BACK button to return to the Virtual Meta Search Engines page.