In the search engine list below, Search Engine Watch provides a guide to the
major search engines of the web. Why are these considered to be "major"
search engines? Because they are either well-known or well-used.

For webmasters, the major search engines are the most important places to be
listed, because they can potentially generate so much traffic.

For searchers, well-known, commercially-backed search engines generally mean
more dependable results. These search engines are more likely to be
well-maintained and upgraded when necessary, to keep pace with the growing
web.

On this page, you will see reference to "crawlers" and "crawler-based
results" versus "directories" and "human-powered results." These describe
the two major ways that search engines get editorial listings. See the How
Search Engines Work page to understand more about the difference between
crawlers and directories.

If you are interested in being listed in these search engines, see Search
Engine Watch's Search Engine Submission Tips section for free, step-by-step
help about the essentials to submitting to search engines and improving your
chances of ranking well. Relevant links to specific tips are integrated into
this page, as well.

Also consider becoming a Search Engine Watch member, to gain access to
detailed information about how the various major search engines work.
Finally, for an at-a-glance view of how the major search engines get their
results, see the Search Engine Results Chart.

Scroll down for listings or jump directly to:
Top Choices
Strongly Consider - Other Choices

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Top Choices
The search engines below are all excellent choices to start with when
searching for information.

Google
http://www.google.com

Voted four times Most Outstanding Search Engine by Search Engine Watch
readers, Google has a well-deserved reputation as the top choice for those
searching the web. The crawler-based service provides both comprehensive
coverage of the web along with great relevancy. It's highly recommended as a
first stop in your hunt for whatever you are looking for.

Google provides the option to find more than web pages, however. Using on
the top of the search box on the Google home page, you can easily seek out
images from across the web, discussions that are taking place on Usenet
newsgroups, locate news information or perform product searching. Using the
More link provides access to human-compiled information from the Open
Directory (see below), catalog searching and other services.

Google is also known for the wide range of features it offers, such as
cached links that let you "resurrect" dead pages or see older versions of
recently changed ones. It offers excellent spell checking, easy access to
dictionary definitions, integration of stock quotes, street maps, telephone
numbers and more. See Google's help page for an entire rundown on some of
these features. The Google Toolbar has also won a popular following for the
easy access it provides to Google and its features directly from the
Internet Explorer browser.

In addition to Google's unpaid editorial results, the company also operates
its own advertising programs. The cost-per-click AdWords program places ads
on Google as well as some of Google's partners. Similarly, Google is also a
provider of unpaid editorial results to some other search engines. For a
list of major partnerships, see the Search Providers Chart.

Google was originally a Stanford University project by students Larry Page
and Sergey Brin called BackRub. By 1998, the name had been changed to
Google, and the project jumped off campus and became the private company
Google. It remains privately held today.

Getting Listed: Read the Submitting To Google section of Search Engine
Watch's Essentials Of Search Engine Submission guide for more about being
included in Google's editorial results and the Google AdWords section for
more about its paid listings programs.

Search Engine Watch members have access to the How Google Works section of
the web site, which provides in-depth coverage of the editorial and paid
listings processes at Google. Learn more about becoming a member on the
membership information page.

Yahoo
http://www.yahoo.com

Launched in 1994, Yahoo is the web's oldest "directory," a place where human
editors organize web sites into categories. However, in October 2002, Yahoo
made a giant shift to crawler-based listings for its main results. These
came from Google until February 2004. Now, Yahoo uses its own search
technology. Learn more in this recent review from our SearchDay newsletter,
which also provides some updated submission details.

In addition to excellent search results, you can use tabs above the search
box on the Yahoo home page to seek images, Yellow Page listings or use
Yahoo's excellent shopping search engine. Or visit the Yahoo Search home
page, where even more specialized search options are offered.

The Yahoo Directory still survives. You'll notice "category" links below
some of the sites lists in response to a keyword search. When offered, these
will take you to a list of web sites that have been reviewed and approved by
a human editor.

It's also possible to do a pure search of just the human-compiled Yahoo
Directory, which is how the old or "classic" Yahoo used to work. To do this,
search from the Yahoo Directory home page, as opposed to the regular
Yahoo.com home page. Then you'll get both directory category links ("Related
Directory Categories") and "Directory Results," which are the top web site
matches drawn from all categories of the Yahoo Directory.

Sites pay a fee to be included in the Yahoo Directory's commercial listings,
though they must meet editor approval before being accepted. Non-commercial
content is accepted for free. Yahoo's content acquisition program also
offers paid inclusion, where sites can also pay to be included in Yahoo's
crawler-based results. This doesn't guarantee ranking, Yahoo promises. The
CAP program also bring in content from non-profit organizations for free.

Like Google, Yahoo sells paid placement advertising links that appear on its
own site and which are distributed to others. These are sold through
Overture. Yahoo purchased Overture in a company Yahoo purchased in October
2003.

Overture was formerly called GoTo until late 2001. More about it can be
found on the Paid Listings Search Engines page. Overture purchased AllTheWeb
(see below) in March 2003 and acquired AltaVista (see below) in April 2003.
Now Yahoo owns these, gained as from its purchase of Overture.

Technology AltaVista and AllTheWeb was combined with that of Inktomi, a
crawler-based search engine that grew out UC Berkeley and then launched as
its own company in 1996, to make the current Yahoo crawler. Yahoo purchased
Inktomi in March 2003.

Getting Listed: Read the Submitting To Yahoo section of Search Engine
Watch's Essentials Of Search Engine Submission guide for more information on
appearing in Yahoo's own editorial results. Read the Overture section of
Search Engine Watch's Essentials Of Search Engine Submission guide for more
information on Overture's paid listings program.

Search Engine Watch members have access to the How Yahoo Works section of
the web site, which provides in-depth coverage of how Yahoo gathers
listings. The How Overture Works page, which provides in-depth coverage of
how cost-per-click ads can be placed with Overture.

Ask Jeeves
http://www.askjeeves.com

Ask Jeeves initially gained fame in 1998 and 1999 as being the "natural
language" search engine that let you search by asking questions and
responded with what seemed to be the right answer to everything.

In reality, technology wasn't what made Ask Jeeves perform so well. Behind
the scenes, the company at one point had about 100 editors who monitored
search logs. They then went out onto the web and located what seemed to be
the best sites to match the most popular queries.

Today, Ask Jeeves instead depends on crawler-based technology to provide
results to its users. These results come from the Teoma search engine that
it owns, which is described below.

Ask Jeeves is doing innovative things with invisible tabs and with what it
calls Smart Search. We think the future of search will be this much smarter
approach to delivering up more than just web pages. It makes Ask Jeeves a
well-worth a visit by anyone looking for information.

Ask Jeeves also owns now closed Direct Hit service.

Getting Listed: For the main editorial listings at Ask Jeeves, you need to
be listed with Teoma, which is described below. Paid listings come from
Google AdWords, described above.

Search Engine Watch members have access to the How Ask Jeeves Works page,
which provides in-depth coverage of how Ask Jeeves integrates listings from
Teoma and its own editors.

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Strongly Consider
The search engines below are other good choices to consider when searching
the web.

AllTheWeb.com
http://www.alltheweb.com

Powered by Yahoo, you may find AllTheWeb a lighter, more customizable and
pleasant "pure search" experience than you get at Yahoo itself. The focus is
on web search, but news, picture, video, MP3 and FTP search are also
offered.

AllTheWeb.com was previously owned by a company called FAST and used as a
showcase for that company's web search technology. That's why you sometimes
may sometimes hear AllTheWeb.com also referred to as FAST or FAST Search.
However, the search engine was purchased by search provider Overture (see
below) in late April 2003, then later become Yahoo's property when Yahoo
bought Overture. It no longer has a connection with FAST.

AOL Search
http://aolsearch.aol.com (internal)
http://search.aol.com/(external)

AOL Search provides users with editorial listings that come Google's
crawler-based index. Indeed, the same search on Google and AOL Search will
come up with very similar matches. So, why would you use AOL Search?
Primarily because you are an AOL user. The "internal" version of AOL Search
provides links to content only available within the AOL online service. In
this way, you can search AOL and the entire web at the same time. The
"external" version lacks these links. Why wouldn't you use AOL Search? If
you like Google, many of Google's features such as "cached" pages are not
offered by AOL Search.

Getting Listed: AOL essentially duplicates the editorial and ad listings
that are shown on Google, so you need to be listed with Google in one of
these ways, as described above .

Search Engine Watch members have access to the How AOL Search Works page,
which provides in-depth coverage of how AOL Search operates and why there
may be subtle differences between it and Google.

HotBot
http://www.hotbot.com

HotBot provides easy access to the web's three major crawler-based search
engines: Yahoo, Google and Teoma. Unlike a meta search engine, it cannot
blend the results from all of these crawlers together. Nevertheless, it's a
fast, easy way to get different web search "opinions" in one place.

HotBot's "choose a search engine" interface was introduced in December 2002.
However, HotBot has a long history as a search brand before this date.

HotBot debuted in May 1996, it gained a strong following among serious
searchers for the quality and comprehensiveness of its crawler-based
results, which were provided by Inktomi, at the time. It also caught the
attention of experienced web users and techies, especially for the unusual
colors and interface it continues to sport today.

HotBot gained more notoriety when it switched over to using Direct Hit's
"clickthrough" results for its main listings in 1999. Direct Hit was then
one of the "hot" search engines that had recently appeared. Unfortunately,
the quality of Direct Hit's results couldn't match those of another "hot"
player that had debuted at the same time, Google. HotBot's popularity began
to drop.

Even worse, HotBot also suffered by being owned by Lycos (now Terra Lycos).
Lycos had acquired HotBot when it purchased Wired Digital in October 1998.
Lycos failed to make search a priority on its flagship Lycos site as well as
HotBot through much of 1999 and 2000, as it focused instead on adding
"portal" features. The company refocused on search in late 2001, making
significant improvements to the Lycos site and, as noted, reworked the
HotBot site at the end of 2002.

Getting Listed: For the main editorial listings at HotBot, you need to be
listed with the three major crawlers that it can query. Follow the links for
these crawlers on this page, where they are mentioned.

Teoma
http://www.teoma.com

Teoma is a crawler-based search engine owned by Ask Jeeves. It has a smaller
index of the web than its rival crawler-competitors Google and Yahoo.
However, being large doesn't make much of a difference when it comes to
popular queries, and Teoma's won praise for its relevancy since it appeared
in 2000. Some people also like its "Refine" feature, which offers suggested
topics to explore after you do a search. The "Resources" section of results
is also unique, pointing users to page that specifically serve as link
resources about various topics. Teoma was purchased by Ask Jeeves in
September 2001 and also provides some results to that web site.

Getting Listed: Read the Submitting To Teoma section of Search Engine
Watch's Essentials Of Search Engine Submission guide for more information on
being included in editorial results. Paid listings come from Google AdWords,
described above.

Search Engine Watch members have access to the How Ask Jeeves Works page,
which provides links to more in-depth coverage of how Ask Jeeves-owned Teoma
gathers listings.

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Other Choices
The sites below are "major" in the sense that they either still receive
significant amounts of traffic or they've earned a reputation in the past
that still causes some people to consider them to be important. For various
reasons explained below, they are not among our top search choices. However,
certainly feel free to try them. They could turn out to be top choices for
you.

AltaVista
http://www.altavista.com

AltaVista opened in December 1995 and for several years was the "Google" of
its day, in terms of providing relevant results and having a loyal group of
users that loved the service.

Sadly, an attempt to turn AltaVista into a portal site in 1998 saw the
company lose track of the importance of search. Over time, relevancy
dropped, as did the freshness of AltaVista's listings and the crawler's
coverage of the web.

Today, AltaVista is once again focused on search. Results come from Yahoo,
and tabs above the search box let you go beyond web search to find images,
MP3/Audio, Video, human category listings and news results. If you want a
lighter-feel than Yahoo but to still have Yahoo's results, AltaVista is
worth considering.

AltaVista was originally owned by Digital, then taken over by Compaq, when
that company purchased Digital in 1998. AltaVista was later spun off into a
private company, controlled by CMGI. Overture purchasing the search engine
in April 2003, then it later became part of Yahoo when Yahoo bought
Overture.

Gigablast
http://www.gigablast.com

Compared to Google, Yahoo or even Teoma, Gigablast has a tiny index of the
web. However, the service is constantly gaining new and interesting
features. Give it a whirl, if you want to try something experimental yet
dependable. Read more about Gigablast in this recent interview from our
SearchDay newsletter.

LookSmart
http://www.looksmart.com

LookSmart is primarily a human-compiled directory of web sites. It gathers
its listings in two ways. Commercial sites pay to be listed in its
commercial categories, making the service very much like an electronic
"Yellow Pages." However, volunteer editors at the LookSmart-owned Zeal
directory also catalog sites into non-commercial categories for free. Though
Zeal is a separate web site, its listings are integrated into LookSmart's
results.

LookSmart launched independently in October 1996, was backed by Reader's
Digest for about a year, and then company executives bought back control of
the service.

LookSmart also bought the WiseNut crawler-based search engine in April 2002.
WiseNut's are offered through the LookSmart via its Web tab above the search
box. Unlike its competitors, the WiseNut crawler has often been out of date,
sometimes for months at a time.

Finally, the real gem at LookSmart can be found via its Articles tab. That
provides access to content from thousands of periodicals.

Getting Listed: Read the Submitting To LookSmart section of Search Engine
Watch's Essentials Of Search Engine Submission guide for more information on
being included in its free non-commercial listings. See the LookSmart Paid
Listings section for information about cost-per-click commercial listings.

Search Engine Watch members have access to the How LookSmart Works page,
which has in-depth coverage of how LookSmart gathers listings.

Lycos
http://www.lycos.com

Lycos is one of the oldest search engines on the web, launched in 1994. It
ceased crawling the web for its own listings in April 1999 and instead
provides access to human-powered results from LookSmart for popular queries
and crawler-based results from Yahoo for others.

"Fast Forward" lets you see search results in one side of your screen and
the actual pages listed in another. Relevant categories of human-compiled
information from the Open Directory appear at the bottom of the search
results page.

Lycos is owned by Terra Lycos, a company formed with Lycos and Terra
Networks merged in October 2000. Terra Lycos also owns the HotBot search
engine described above.

Getting Listed: For the main editorial listings at Lycos, you need to be
listed with AllTheWeb.com, which is described above on this page. Paid
listings come from Overture, described below, and additional paid listings
come from Terra Lycos's own program, as described in this article.

Search Engine Watch members have access to the How Lycos Works page, which
provides in-depth coverage of how Lycos integrates listings from its search
providers.

MSN Search
http://search.msn.com

Formerly one of Search Engine Watch's top choices, MSN Search is definitely
one to watch. The service was previously powered by LookSmart results and
gained top marks for having its own team of editors that monitored the most
popular searches being performed to hand-pick sites believed to be the most
relevant. The system worked well.

Today, MSN Search is in transition. It provides access to Yahoo listings but
not as much functionality in terms of other types of searches that you'll
find at Yahoo itself. However, MSN is developing its own crawler-based
technology and planning other changes that should revitalize the service in
later 2004.

Getting Listed: You need to be listed with Yahoo and Overture, which are
described further above on this page.

Search Engine Watch members have access to the How MSN Search Works page,
which provides in-depth coverage of how MSN integrates listings from its
search providers and its own editors.

Netscape Search
http://search.netscape.com

Owned by AOL Time Warner, Netscape Search uses Google for its main listings,
just as does AOL's other major search site, AOL Search. So why use Netscape
Search rather than Google? Unlike with AOL Search, there's no compelling
reason to consider it. The main difference between Netscape Search and
Google is that Netscape Search will list some of Netscape's own content at
the top of its results. Netscape also has a completely different look and
feel than Google. If you like either of these reasons, then try Netscape
Search. Otherwise, you're probably better off just searching at Google.

Getting Listed: Netscape essentially duplicates the editorial and ad
listings that are shown on Google, so you need to be listed with Google in
one of these ways, as described above on this page.

Open Directory
http://dmoz.org/

The Open Directory uses volunteer editors to catalog the web. Formerly known
as NewHoo, it was launched in June 1998. It was acquired by AOL Time
Warner-owned Netscape in November 1998, and the company pledged that anyone
would be able to use information from the directory through an open license
arrangement.

While you can search at the Open Directory site itself, this is not
recommended. The site has no "backup" results that kick in should there not
be a match in the human-compiled database. In addition, the ranking of sites
during keyword searching is poor, while alphabetical ordering is used when
you choose to "browse" categories by topic.

Instead, to scan the valuable information compiled by the Open Directory,
consider using the version offered by Google, the Google Directory. Here,
keyword searching uses Google's refined relevancy algorithms and makes use
of link analysis to better propel good pages from the human database to the
top. In addition, when viewing sites by category, they will be listed in
PageRank order, which means the most popular sites based on analyzing links
from across the web will be listed first.

Getting Listed: Read the Submitting To The Open Directory section of Search
Engine Watch's Essentials Of Search Engine Submission guide for more
information.

Search Engine Watch members have access to the How The Open Directory Works
page, which provides in-depth coverage of how the Open Directory gathers
listings.

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More Search Engine Lists
Still looking for more search engines? Consider these options:

Other Global Search Engines
Other services that cover the world. They may not be as popular or
well-known as the services above, but they may still be helpful

Community-Based Search Engines
Places where volunteers are involved in the listing process

Guides To Search Engines
Lists places that themselves list hundreds of search engines worldwide.

Where Are They Now? Search Engines We've Known & Loved
The Search Engine Report, March 4, 2003

Not a list of search engines but some additional past history about the
major players above and former major search engines that have faded in glory
or disappeared entirely, over time.

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