The Explorer: Time To Change Search Engines?The Explorer: Time To Change Search Engines?

I use a metasearch engine that is never mentioned in anybody's reviews -- Brightgate. It's simple, fast, and easily configurable. -- Mike C.
[Brightgate claims to metasearch 125 different resources!]

RagingSearch is the AltaVista search engine without any of the frills. -- J. Alan Brogan
[Wow! It's AltaVista pared down to look as spare and lean as All The Web!]

I use Copernic as my search engine. It really is a collection of search engines. What it does is search anywhere from 10 to 15 search engines at once. In many reviews of search engines, I have noticed that it is left out, probably because it is not technically a search engine. I have a broadband connection at home, so it works really well. -- Jonathan Hicks
[Copernic requires a download and a locally-installed applet, but it's been installed almost 10 million times, so clearly many people find it worthwhile.]

If your readers want a search engine that's effective, easy to use but powerful with no clutter, and is not a portal then try this one, Ixquick. Also, you might want your readers to access the best single source for Internet information and facts on the Web, Refdesk.com -- Leo Scott
[Ixquick can handle seven languages; Refdesk is like a library at your fingertips.]

I used to use HotBot a lot, but Microsoft seemed to make that search engine unavailable with one of its releases of MS Explorer. I now use 3 different search engines, depending upon the need: 1. I use Dogpile for a general search; it is a metadata search engine, using the results from many search engines and compiling them in one easy result. 2. I use Scour for specific searches for things like images. Give it a try -- it is pretty useful. 3. I use AskJeeves for other things. -- Steve Waddell

I've become a fan of TopClick after becoming disillusioned with AltaVista a while back. TopClick = no cookies, no bouncing banner ads, and has a very fast response time. Give it a try, I think you'll like it; it uses the Google engine. -- Brad

Vivisimo is a search engine that is very different. -- Errol DeMarchi
[Currently in beta, but presents the results in a beautifully-formatted, and easy-to-navigate way.]

I've used a slew of search engines including Fast Search, Google, Savvy Search & Mamma (which I still like). But my current favorite now is MetaEureka. This always seems to produce very good results for me, better than any of the others. They also have a free desktop component. -- J.W.
[MetaEureka searches the Web, news, newsgroups, software sites, MP3 sites, music sites, picture sites, encyclopedias, books, jokes... amazing!]

The technically curious will find further information on the Google site itself. However, a feature article about use of links to evaluate relevancy of Web pages was published in the June 1999 issue of Scientific American  (by the way, I first heard about Google from this article). The article was actually centered on CLEVER, a research project by IBM.

While searching for the above-mentioned article, I hit the Sci-Am March '97 issue, with a special feature about the Internet. An article in that issue discussed innovative user interfaces for search engines. The only example I know of something similar to what is described in the article is WebBrain. It is a directory with a distinctive feature -- a Java applet displaying a graph of the relationships linking different categories. The graph is dynamic, and can be used to 'navigate' through different categories.