Multisearch: The new generation of search engines
by: David Cropley
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Word Count: 469
Internet search engines (e.g. Google, Live Search, and AltaVista) help users find web pages on a given subject. The search engines maintain databases of web sites and use programs (often referred to as "spiders" or "robots") to collect information, which is then indexed by the search engine. Similar services are provided by "directories," which maintain ordered lists of websites, e.g. Yahoo!
Multisearch is a new tool that allows you to search on several search engines at once instead of searching repeatedly on each one. For example, with multisearch you can locate information at the same time rather than searching on each search engine separately. Multisearch is organized into groups of websites/search engines that appropriate to areas of study (called QuickSets) — for example, "Shopping" or "Entertainment".
Why use a multisearch engine? There are at least 150,000 different search engines available which cover both general and specific subjects which search specific elements of the Internet such as Web pages or Usenet. While some of these are particularly effective and sophisticated none of them are entirely comprehensive. They may only use a small database from which to create your set of results (Yahoo for example only indexes a very small proportion of the 3 billion pages indexed by Google), or they may not be updated particularly quickly (All the web is updated every fortnight or so, while Google is updated monthly).
Their spider programs may not be very fast, which means that their currency might not be a real reflection of the state of play on the Internet. Consequently, even if you have a favorite search engine, or even several of them, to ensure anything like a comprehensive search you may need to use several of them before you are satisfied that you have found everything you require on a particular topic. A multisearch engine may save you the trouble of going to a variety of different sites in order to run your search, or it may suggest a search engine which you had not considered, or perhaps did not even know about!
Some of the multisearch websites operating at the moment include: iTools, Dogpile, Wookah and Ixquick. Although these multisearch engines base themselves in the same idea, they operate differently:
5. iTools a list of different search engines.
6. Dogpile search query gets executed on few search engines one after the other.
7. Wookah shows you the best sites for your search at the same time, on one screen and under different tabs.
8. Ixquick your search query executed on few search engines simultaneously.
Multisearch engines are distinguished from each other by the following criteria:
1. The number of search engines that a Multi-search engine will use.
2. The elements of the Internet which are searched.
3. Any words, all words, phrase searching.
4. Boolean operators, truncation and proximity searching.
5. Focussing a search.
6. Choice of subject area.
7. Time taken and hits returned.
8. Display
Author:David Cropley
www.TheWritersOnline.com
(Read or Write Your Way to Big Success)
About the Author
David Cropley is an American technical writer from Evanston, Wyoming, with a keen interest for cultural trends, brand marketing and innovative technology. Over the past 6 years, David has worked as a marketing and technology consultant on over 40 ventures throughout the USA, Southern Asia and Europe. To find out more about Wookah go to:
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