Search Engines to try other than Google

**gonzo** · 10-28-2004, 05:42 PM

Unfortunately google gets hit by alot of search engine spam, and when it updates its index alot relevent sites (as well as spam sites) get the axe.

For research lately i have been using www.vivisimo.com, which is clustering meta search engine (fancy smancy term for saying a search engine of search engines). It displays the information in information groups to the left which will give additional ideas of how to whittle down your search.

Another handy lil' search engine is www.teoma.com, which brings in alot of nice sites that google/yahoo/msn usually miss out on. Index not as big as the others but it ain't bad.

If online research ain't your thang, then stick with google as it still does an alright job.

**Ads** · 10-28-2004 05:42 PM

**Geronimo** · 10-28-2004, 06:55 PM

Originally Posted by vonnagy

For research lately i have been using www.vivisimo.com, which is clustering meta search engine (fancy smancy term for saying a search engine of search engines). It displays the information in information groups to the left which will give additional ideas of how to whittle down your search.

I have been using this one for several years now. Could not search with out it.

**Nytmair** · 10-28-2004, 06:58 PM

nice! vivisimo just helped me find some song lyrics i've been trying to find for a while now... thanks!

**Niki** · 10-29-2004, 03:33 AM

Thats cool, too bad either of them worked when I tried.

Never heard of these before. I've used google and if I need more info then altavista.com or http://www.fi/ ...I Guess I'll stick with them..

**Walt** · 10-29-2004, 08:00 AM

I've found metacrawler is usualy pretty good.

**Alison** · 10-29-2004, 08:04 AM

I like dogpile.com. Actually did a comparison on many different search engines for a class a few months ago. The majority of the class used Google but in terms of usability and results Google was ranked the last. Funny how that works.

**jadin** · 10-29-2004, 08:25 AM

I wish google would do something about all the spam sites. They are getting insane, they make webpages with ads that the only 'actual text' is exactly what you searched for. Stupid @#)*($ jerks.

**gonzo** · 10-29-2004, 03:15 PM

Originally Posted by jadin

I wish google would do something about all the spam sites. They are getting insane, they make webpages with ads that the only 'actual text' is exactly what you searched for. Stupid @#)*($ jerks.

you can't blame google for that. it like trying to blame email for spamming. you can try to put a filter on email spam, but sometimes it gets the good stuff- likewise for search engine results. Rumour has it that the googlers are going to apply a huge spam filter on the engine in the next few months, and i don't think the results are going to get any prettier.

yep, the only problem with vivisimo it doesn't do localised/country search searches, google, altavista, variations of msn.

As far usuability goes, google kicks arse if you know the advanced commands. The site: & inurl: commands rock for finding specific files on the web and within and there are many more.

Metacrawler and Dogpile are both meta search engines (search engine of search engines). I prefer vivisimo's results better because no one has outshined their clustering ability yet - and its funny because its does not use google in its result set.

Each search engine has its own strength and weaknesses - altavista is good for multimedia search, alltheweb is good for searches within timeframes, google is unmatched if you know how to use the special commands 8)