Which search service should I use?
Which search service should I use?The base page lists eighteen of the many Internet search services. If you're not familiar with them, how do you know which one is likely to find the information you want?
This document is intended to help you determine which search service is right for you, depending on what kind of information you're looking for.
The following information is available:
Searching for general informationAll eighteen listed search services are good in one way or another at finding general information. The following list attempts to identify what kinds of information each service is "best" at finding.
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Alta Vista--Probably one of the more popular search services, with over 54 million documents indexed. Allows for basic as well as advanced queries. A good starting point when you have a specific topic or area to research. |
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Deja.com--Searches Usenet news groups for articles that meet the criteria you specify. Can also be used to read current Usenet news articles and to post to Usenet. (Formerly known as "Deja News.") |
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Excite--A nice general-purpose search service, which allows you to search the web, newsgroups (both current and archived), and other online resources like the phone book, the yellow pages, and people's e-mail addresses. Excite also provides reviews of web pages. |
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Four-11--Excellent when you're looking for a specific person. Four-11 is run by NYNEX, the baby Bell company for New England, and is an online telephone directory for much of the United States (residences only). Businesses are not listed in four-11. |
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HotBot--An Inktomi-powered search engine that allows for complex searches (document must or should contain a word or phrase or link to a URL). Useful if you can stand the bright green background on the search page. |
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Lycos--Carnegie Mellon University's search engine; provides a general search function as well as specific indices to search. |
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search.cnet.com--The Alta Vista-powered c|net search service, good as a general information search service. |
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Yahoo--An Alta Vista-powered search service, where information has been categorized for you so you can search by location (geographic) or topic. Useful after a fashion, but you can be out of luck if your concept of where a topic belongs does not match Yahoo's indexers'. |
Searching for peopleIf you want to find a person somewhere in the United States, your best bet is the Four-11 service. Four-11 is run by NYNEX, the baby Bell company for New England, and is an online telephone directory for much of the United States (residences only). Businesses are not listed in four-11.
If you're looking for someone from high school or college, you can also check out Alumni.net, which is maintained by those people themselves.