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Are Meta Search Services For You?

Basically a meta search engine is a search engine that searches other search engines. When a search is performed on a meta search engine it queries a host of databases simultaneously on your behalf and returns the results aggregated into one list. Depending on the service, results from different search engines are mixed together in the list or each search engines results are reported separately.

Most of the meta-search engines do not consistently query all of the search engines it claims to query, and you don't know for sure what it is querying until you read the results. Services that offer an advanced search such as ProFusion will give you more control over the results.

New (2nd generation) meta search services such as SurfWax, offer tools to view extracts from pages, view your words in context in the pages, sort results in different ways, and more. This may be a better way to explore complex searches than going directly to AltaVista. Try a search at AltaVista, then try the exact search at SurfWax using its advanced features.

I have marked the ones that I think are good meta search engines with "***". You will have to decide for yourself if I am right or not.

Search Boxes are available from the search services that offer them.

Vivisimo *** [New Window]

You can choose to have Vivisimo search any or all of the following; Yahoo!, Fast, MSN, Netscape, Open Directory, Lycos, Excite, Direct Hit, LookSmart, Ask Jeeves, AOL and Hot Bot.

You can also configure it to search the following news search engines; CNN, NYTimes, Yahoo News, World News, BBC, SFGate, CNNfn, Yahoo BizNews, Wired, Yahoo TechNews, Yahoo SportsNews and CNNsi.

Finally it can be configured to search; Yahoo Auctions, eBay, Yahoo Shopping, PubMed, US Government, Patent Search, Gorp, Business.com and Britannica.

One of a new generation of metasearch engines. Like a handful of other metasearch engines, Vivisimo provides comprehensive coverage, finding relevant listings. In addition Vivisimo clusters listings covering similar topics. You can scroll through these on the main part of the page or click on the handy folders on the left hand side of the page. Either way this additional organization makes it easier to navigate the search results and find what you are looking for more quickly. A clean and simple design along with options for configuring the page view (only in Internet Explorer) make this new tool among the top ten search tools.

Ixquick *** [New Window]

Natural language or complex boolean searches can be performed with Ixquick. Phrases, wild cards, omitted terms, must-have terms, parentheses, and other modifiers such as NEAR, are supported. Ixquick knows which search engines can cope with which complex searches.

1Blink.Com [New Window]

Meta search Engine for infoseek, AltaVista, HotBot, Alcanseek Yahoo, Northern Light, Excite, Lycos, Thunderstone, Euroseek, Planet Search.

2Q (QuickQuest) [New Window]

Search/access multiple directories, indexes and news sources. You can select up to four different search engines/directories for your search. Each is returned in a seperate window.

Beaucoup Search Engines [New Window]

More than 350 search engines in categorized tables. Also in 6 languages, all-in-one searches, and forms.

Beseeker.com [New Window]

"Let Me Seek It for You!The ulimate experience for internet user! Search multiple search engines at once in parallel on Yahoo, Open Directory and other large search engines & directories."

BetterBrain.Com [New Window]

A meta search engine that searches 11 major search engines at once, 2 newsgroups, fast mp3 searches or browse the open directory.

ByteSearch [New Window]

A fast and powerful meta search engine. Removes duplicates and allows you to choose topics to search within.

CentraPoint [New Window]

A Portal or Mini Portal that boasts of meta searching all Major SE's Meta search every major search engine from one place.

Chubba [New Window]

A powerful Web metasearch engine that queries many of the Web's top search engines (including whatUseek's Web Index). Chubba.com also provides weather forecasts, Usenet searching, dictionary and encyclopedia lookup.

Mamma.com [New Window]

The Mother Of All Search Engines is her slogan.And she says, "Mamma.com is a "Smart Meta Search Engine". Mamma simultaneously queries 10 of the major Search Engines and properly formats the words and syntax for each source being probed.

[MetaCrawler] [New Window]

A Meta Search Engine from InfoSpace.

Prime Search [New Window]

18 Internet Search Engines, 3 Newsgroup Search Engines, 12 MP3 Search Engines, 2 Computer Support Sites, 4 Software Search Engines, 3 Auction Sites, 5 Consumer Product Comparison Sites and 2 News Search Engines!

A Mega Search rather than Meta search Engine. Returns your search words as keywords in a separate window letting you choose from a list of search services including news groups.

search.vu - Search Portal [New Window]

A service of goClick a pay-per-placement search engine.

The Informed Netizen's Choice [New Window]

For general web searching you can also ask a natural question in Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese or Spanish.

Planetsearch - Your Web. Your Way. [New Window]

Search 12 Engines at Once. Engines Searched: Goto, FindWhat, Kanoodle, 7Search, Bay9, MSN, Google, Deja, AltaVista, Excite, Go, HotBot, Lycos, Yahoo

Universal Search Page [New Window]

From Quik Pic Links Web Sourcing. Choose from 18 search engines, Google included, or use the QuickPicLinks. Each search engine choosen will be displayed in a different browser window. If you choose six search engines, you'll have six separate browser windows opened.