Take Five a Day » Blog Archive » 300 Search Engines Reviewed … Yes 300, Yes, Reviewed

300 Search Engines Reviewed … Yes 300, Yes, Reviewed

As someone who has to do a lot of research, I have used a lot of different search engines & search sites and recently Charles Knight of Read/WriteWeb came up with a list of 100 alternative search engines. Some were familiar to me, some were not and I knew of a couple dozen more not on his list. So, I thought, I’ll just peruse them and write up a review of each … well, the rumors are true, I have personally now seen over 300 search engines and more are on the way. Charles Knight and his group have thoughtfully added an April update so I have added a few more and I’m pretty sure I’ve cleared 300 …

A search engine’s measure of usefulness is pretty simple:

Results are current.
Results are accurate.
Results are quickly delivered.
Results are easy to read/understand.
Search bar is easy to find.
Paid ads & paid results are highlighted.

These are the 6 things that are “easy” in some senses because it’s all just facts and design … but there is one more … the 7th is the difference between a 5-star meal and eating at Appleby’s. It is:

RESULTS THAT ARE USEFUL

On the surface, that doesn’t sound like much but if you really think about about it, a lot of people can tell what year the wine is from, the kind of grapes and the winery but what does that vintage actually taste like? Ah, that’s the critical difference. There is a reason GOOGLE has 60%+ of the search and growing. It delivers the 6 main requirements every mili-second of everyday plus the elusive 7th one. Google is a sommelier at a 5-star restaurant and the others are a description of the wine from the Appleby’s wine list (sorry, not trying to pick on Appleby’s 😉

Is it perfect? No of course not but Google’s market share is the difference between the results of MSN/Live’s or Yahoo’s search as witnessed by consumers and users everyday. That is the magic that is Google, taking a bunch of links and determining what’s the one to five that humans doing search really, really want to gleam information from – that 1 to 5 of the best of the best and Google nails it pretty much 99.8% of the time. Until Yahoo or MSLive figures it out, they are on a slippery slope.

And really, the have NO ONE to blame because using a search engine is really the ultimate consumer choice – you can make the switch from Google to Yahoo to Baidu in 2 seconds. No other consumer choice is so fickle and so clear. If you buy a box of cookies, you might still finish them so not to waste them. Google has no such luxury. They live and die by every single search and you can switch without cost, without reservation, or without hesitation in 2 seconds but the reason you don’t is they deliver.

So, do we really need another 100-300 search engines? Well yes and no. No, there is no one close to Google in general searches – there are some interesting ones in specific searches but on the other hand, there’s no reason why someone shouldn’t try and topple Google. Not a very easy task but hey, it’s the internet – anything can happen in 2 seconds and 2 seconds by 6.5 billion people, maybe not today but there’s always the day after tomorrow …

THE PROCESS

Basically I selected an item that you can purchase, and a word with multiple meanings to see what kind of results I get. I did not spend hours on each site exploring every nook & cranny but if it can’t deliver basic search results, what else do you need to know?

Also NOTE: If I left anyone off, sorry but if I could not unearth you after finding about 300 of your brethern, you need to get on the internet on-ramp.

And there are many that did not make the cut:

Blog directories that required blogs to submit to be included, I just skipped over those – especially ones with egregious typos like “Catergoy” (yes, I’m talking to you GETBLOGS).

If it’s a portal of info but just searched itself, I did not bother to include it. I was on the edge in regards to Answers.com or About.com – both fine places but since their pages show up in Google, I did decide to skip them. Sorry, dudes. How about an active link to make up for it?

I also skipped the new use-us-to-use-Google and we get a charity donation. I let you sort out the real from the scams but since they all use one of the major search engines, it’s not really new new.

There are some that are apps that require downloading. I skipped those.

I think I left off most of the pay-per-click search engines as they didn’t seem to offer much in the way of delivering actual useful info.

I also did not bother to test out all of Google’s own granular “stand-alone” search options or the custom created ones.

I did not include shopping searches if they only included a few stores.

Or sites like I AM BORED which are amusing but have poor search features and just like being at a carnival, the point of the site is just to wander around aimlessly … mocking others 🙂

* At first, I wasn’t going to include sites, portal or databases if they just searched themselves but then some offered info available nowhere else – and if the purpose of a search engine is to unearth info, what better than a site that delivers you 2 steps closer? So technically, they are not all search engines per say but then you could also argue that search sites that rely on a multitude of other search engines to do the work are not technically search engines but just front ends … so I widen the parameters of a search engine concept to include:

Search Engines
Front Ends of Meta/Multitude Search Engines
Massive Info Sites with Search intending to deliver you information

THE LINK MUST BE EARNED

Any site not linked is because I didn’t think they were worthy of a link, just drop back by Charles Knight’s website – he has 100 of them in alpha order and linked. The other 200 you can find on Google … which might not be vice versa true of the other search engines 🙂

All of these are US or English-language sites. I might get around to testing Asian & European ones later.

BOOKMARK IT!

Accona: Their “regular” search is nothing interesting, the usual stuff but their BUSINESS search is quite useful for market research purposes.

Blinkx.com: Video Search and it actually does. It found videos on YouTube that YouTube’s own search couldn’t find. Nice.

BlogPulse: Not surprising, AC Nielsen has the means to create a very nice looking site with fast, wide ranging blog search & results. One of the best.

BusinessResearch: Not a great resource but pretty nicely defined one. They will search most of the market research companies such as Gartner, IDC, etc … so even though their reports are pay-to-read, at least you know what’s out there without having to go to each. It also offers you a chance to search at once through the 12 main business news deliverers such as WSJ, NY Times, CNN Money, etc … so you can get everything in one fell swoop. Well conceived and fast – the design of the site could be updated to a more professional look but the results and features of the site are excellent.

ClipBlast.com: Video Search. Good front/home page. Fast results.

Edmunds: Amazingly complete database of autos, auto dealerships, auto info, etc … there is nothing you can conceive of in regards to buying or selling a used or new car that is not on here. They added videos and don’t forget to read this sad/hilarious feature when they sent a journalist to spend 3 months selling cars. Not affiliated is Kelly Blue Book for used car pricing. National Highway Safety DB is here and here.

FindSounds.com: Sound File/SFX Search. It Works. Not something most people need everyday but nice to know it’s there.

FreeLunch: Links & search to (mostly free) economic & business data worldwide. Very comprehensive.

Google: Just in case anyone thought I forgot – I already listed a link above. All hail Google search. Thank you for resisting the madness that overtakes everyone else who seems the need to add everything under the moon to the front page. Simplicity rules! These guys have put all of Google’s searches on one page.

Healia: Health related search – on one hand, a Google search of the same condition returns results that seem just as informative. The one thing that Healia offers are FILTERS for the search results such as BASIC or ADVANCED and about 20 other choices so while it might not be a site you look at everyday (or hope you don’t have to), it’s probably nice to have tucked in your bookmarks when the need arises. The US Institute of Health is here.

Internet Archive-WayBack Machine: Simply brilliant. If not for their foresight, the early days of the internet would’ve been treated like empheral and we would lament all that we cannot see anymore – sure, it’s a lot of gray pages nad flashing bright pink arrows but the past is the past – great for market intelligence research – invaluable!

Intuite: UK based search of UK research, university lectures, scholarly reports, etc … (damn, I have to spend all this time removing extraneous “u’s” from the quotes 🙂 An amazing amount of useful stuff.

Knuru: Affiliated with Wharton@Knowledge, one of the best strategic business info websites so this presumably is an extension – very straightforward but excellent search results – type in your business related search and you get results in two tabs – STRATEGIC & NEWS. Excellent.

Last.FM: A music recommendation site that actually works. I typed in an obscure band just starting out that I know from MySpace. LastFM actually recommended other artists from their genre. Impressive.

Librarian Internet Index: Nice research resource. Nice, deep, complete with specialty results that are hard to unearth elsewhere. Excellent.

Library of Congress-Prints & Photos: Remember, they belong to us, “We the People …” (well for US citizens). Library of Congress – everything else. The Law Library of Congress is here.

Like.com: Visual Search – so far mostly clothes but interesting and it works.

MagPortal: Searches through all magazines online – also gives you a pulse of what ideas/topics are being covered out there. Design a little weird but pretty fast and accurate results. Excellent.

MelissaData: A STAGGERING amount of links ranging from zip code to US census data to income stat demographcs to fatal accident statistics.

NorthernLight Business: One of the best business, marketing and marketing intelligence searches. Some results are available on a pay basis but always worthwhile to see what is out there. Advanced Search Here.

PageBull: A real graphics preview search. You get ALL your results in snapshot thumbnails form – though in this case, thumbnail actually undersells what you get, more like giant palm sized previews. You can select 4×3, 2×6 or 3×4 as your display choice so you get 2, 3 or 4 web homepage snapshot previews – perhaps not useful if you’re researching cooper tubing but very nice if you’re researching art. Very useful. very nice. Uses the Yahoo search engine.

PicSearch: Blazing fast & accurate. Can’t ask much of a image/photo search engine.

Pipl: Damn, there is no hiding from Pipl on the internet. (In your best evil bad guy cliche accent country-of-your-choice), “Your dossier is bulging …”

Podzinger.com: Podcast Search. Works pretty solidly.

SearchForVideo: An actual url that does actually does what it says. Very comprehensive video search plus very nice thumbnail screenshots. Recommended!

SeeQPod: A nice web 2.0 design music & video search. Tried a lot of obscure tracks – found them all floating around the internet. You choose the version that you are looking for, then just drag to the right as your save window and hit play. Nice.

Swamii: While Google Alerts is nice, Swamii is much better – for some odd reason, Google Alerts results don’t seem very comprehensive. Swamii allows you to type in keywords and save them – you then get a daily sweep of the internet of “What’s New” pertaining/including your keywords. Your updates can be daily, every two days or weekly. A great marketing intelligence tool to have in your toolbox. It’s in beta but it’s great.

Technorati: Unless you’ve been in an underground cave for 5 years, the best blog search is still Technorati. The new WTF feature is a funny and a worthwhile addition.

TheFind: Very nice, quick and visual shopping search & comparison. Nice.

VideoSift: Flash video search & site (though most videos are embedded from other places) – only Flash, no other format – it does make for easy saving to the desktop.

Wikipedia: An amazing showcase of the power of the web community. It is staggering what information you can find there though of course, people might question why there are 10,000 words on Jedi training and 2,000 on the Monroe Doctrine 😉 but hey, that’s the internet for you. I think it’s brilliant even with the occasional twit who pollute it … it gets fixed quickly.

WorldCat: Useful search results linked to research databases and scholarly sites. Not for general searching but more theory, analyses, research, etc … Also powers ERIC (Educational Resource Information Center) which offers lookup links to libraries carrying journals, etc … Excellent.

Yahoo Finance: So good, it merits its own listing. The best free site for getting all the basic and some not so basic financial & business research. Not as complete as Hoover’s but for free, it’s hard to beat. This is one area Google is way behind Yahoo. NASDAQ Official Stats. Marketwatch Big Charts.

ZabaSearch: So good, it’s a little spooky. It finds people only but it does a pretty good job – there are also portions of the site that cost costs $ but if you have a general idea where someone is …

Zudos: A new and fine market intelligence gathering tool. Type in your search term/companyproduct to check out the online buzz – from blogs to news to postcasts to photos to videos – everything is beautifully displayed on one page. Nicer looking than Swamii but there’s no login where you can build keyword searches though you can just save as a bookmark and return via the web the next day. Unlike Swamii, there is no email daily summary component but still very nice and very useful.

BOOKMARK IT (MAYBE … IF IT’S UP YOUR ALLEY)

43Things: I debated about including it since while you can search it, it’s really not that useful … it’s more useful in a random – clicky, click, click sense … it’s like your neighborhood free spirit – they always have something interesting to say or they’re about to go do something you never thought of … Kramer before Mike Richards went all insane in the brain. So, like a search engine result, you can learn something, what – I have no idea … but it is the beauty of the internet. Someone sat bolt upright in the middle of the night, scribbled some stuff on a legal pad and $10 million dollar in angel funding later, you have an nearly indescribable something.

9 Rules: Great looking site. They seem to a closed community of bloggers (blogs are hosted elsewhere/by others/normal channels) chosen for their the “best in class content,” If you know what topic you want to read about – their search will either turn up some great posts or it will turn up nada. So, the search works or it doesn’t – if the content wasn’t worthy, I’d say skip it but since the content is useful – it might be worth a look for you.

Aardvarksport.net: Well, their regular search is not very good (I’m presuming there’s only one Aardvark Search Group) but the sports one is pretty informative. It looks like it might be a Google custom search but in this case I’ll accept since if you’re searching for an athlete with a common name, it will cut down on your results. If you search for someone more well known, you do tend to get the same results as you would if you just entered that name in Google so it depends on how often you want to search for sports. There is someone starting up a sports stat search but it’s pretty sparse – you’re better off searching through here for stats – BASEBALL, FOOTBALL, BASKETBALL & HOCKEY … Or their custom Google Search (for the 3 Reference.com sites – Hockey NOT theirs). This is not intended to be comprehensive, just a starting point – after all, only baseball fans would launch a project of trying to add a scorecard for every single professional baseball game EVER PLAYED – Retrosheet. Thanks for the suggestion A. Woodstrom.

AgencyCompile: If your needs are to search for an ad, promotions, marketing, design agency … very complete links as well as creative showcases.

AllMusic: Database speed greatly improved but still slow in spots. It’s simply the most comprehensive & deepest music database. Yes, they could do a better job on obscure artists – perhaps even inviting people to submit bios for approval but otherwise, hard to find a competitor this complete. They also offer a MovieDB and one of the few places with a nice VideoGame DB.

AnimalSearch: Probably pretty good for kids looking to do research. A directory lists: animals, animal groups, geography, animal issues, etc … click to see links. Looks useful enough – probably links you can find through Google or yahoo search but this will cut to the chase. Good idea.

Become.com: Decent looking shopping bot & search. Nice design and lots of photos. Looks like they license their content to others.

BoardReader: Not sure why an average person would want to search through and read forum postings but I could certainly see an application for gathering marketing intelligence.

BoardTracker: Pretty good board/forum search but there are several I visit that are not in their database so while useful, not nearly great yet.

BrainBoost: Sentence queries. Excellent animated gif logo … is that any reason to add them to the maybe list? Sure, why not? Plus, it looks very nice. It’s probably best for teenagers or kids to ask it questions … though honestly when I asked why is sky blue, its answers and Googles were just as good so it’s nice but not great … but its animated gif logo is ultra cool.

ClipFire: A nice and quick shopping bot search but text only – useful but not nearly as nice as THEFIND which not only offers up photos but often better pricing. Since I can’t say absolutely 100% that THEFIND always offers up better pricing, so I’ll include ClipFire here for you to decide.

CompletePlanet: Claims to search within 70,000 publicly accessible databases – did not test out every page versus Google but since the pages it returned contained useful research links, it should be considered. Whether it lives up to the hype or not, you might want to investigate further.

CometQuery.com: Search results returned with thumbnail of website along with text link. Very fast so not bad in some circumstances – potentially useful.

CPA Search: Not something I need everyday but nice to know it’s there.

DaytimeNews: What is it with RSS Directories and a worse search than HelloKitty Search? You can look in the directories and view a nice directory and you can go into each site and search but don’t depend on the search engine here.

Eurekster: Not a search engine per say but let’s you create your vertical search. The link is to their directory – from what i could tell, it’s either a huge miss among a few interesting ones but at least it’s easy on the eyes – worth a look and maybe you want to roll your own.

Direct Search: Searches through a lot of government databases. Frankly, I could not get it to work consistently but it looks deep & worthy with lots of links so even if the search is wonky, it will lead you deeper if government resources are your query. It’s look & feel is hideous beaten with an ugly stick.

FactBites.com: Research Search. Returns results of sites offering “facts,” so potentially a good place to start – potentially useful in researching but for some subjects, the return links are pretty sparse so not brilliant but it’s probably a good site for high school students starting a research paper who doesn’t want to chase 50 links.

Feedster.com: News/Blog Search. Acceptable results – useful enough if you’re researching online buzz or curious about the pulse of certain topics but not a very comprehensive search.

FlickrStorm: Another Flickr Image search. Not any better than searching Flickr itself but it does create nice thumbnails and even an online “tray” to collect them. This is pretty specialized but in case anyone has been looking for this – it’s something different at least.

GenieKnows: Delivers what it promises – just search results for video games and videogaming – even topics that might stray outside the realm of videogames, it didn’t fall for my ruse – only videogaming links so if you want nothing to do with First Life as you are happy with your Second life, this is your search engine.

Gigablast: Nice looking logo – this is a blazing fast search engine – I think even faster than Google. It seems to return different results than Google so that’s useful for research. Until I delve into a topic, it’s hard to tell if the return results are better but different is okay. You can decide if it’s worthy but it should merit a little consideration – it’s certainly faster & better than MS Live.

GlobalHealthFacts: Massive & comprehensive.

GlobalSpec: The engineering search engine – it’s not kidding. It is very serious about engineering, mechanical, fluid, optical, etc … a very solid looking website that returns serious results. Unfortunately, I’m not much of an engineer (sure, these cardboard boxes will hold up your 4 ton pickup, then you can work underneath it!) so I can’t verify with a degree of much accuracy but the searches I tested out turned all the right results. So, clearly not for everyone but looks solid for those who would need something like this.

Globe of Blogs: Finally, another RSS Feeder with an actual working search engine (though Technorati is without a doubt the Google AND Yahoo of blog search), Globe of Blogs clearly not essential but at least the search sort of works.

GoArticles: Not as useful as LookSmart but they do unearth some unusual and uncommon but relevant and appropriate links. So, if you do a lot of indepth research, they might turn up something off the beaten path.

Guidestar: Everything you need to know about nonprofit organizations. Free Sign-in required. There is info only available to paid subscribers.

Hakia: An attempt at natural language search and your “real” intentions – but so far, it’s only a nice search but not startling different. It’s fast, it’s current and its results seem deep and worthwhile so you might want to check it out – it’s certainly better than AskJeeves (aka: Ask.com) but that’s a pretty low bar.

Highwire: Stanford University database of peer reviewed journals and publications. Some are free. Easy to search and pricing info is listed plainly.

Hoovers: The first place to start for gathering business & financial intelligence. It’s a paid site but everything is here. There is some basic info you can find here free so check first.

igrep: A developer and IT search engine. Interesting enough and will let you skip some useless entry points so worth a look.

IMDBPro: Of course, more of an info site. The pay site portion contains a massive database of information for researchers and people in the TV & Film industry. There are printed book directories of course but most actually cost more and you never know if the printed book is out of date – with IMDBPro, updating you to current info is a snap. It’s $12.95 a month or $99 for the year. Of course, the main site is still free – IMDB.

Indeed.com: Job search engine. They are not kidding – they do seem to search just about everyone – CareerBuilder to Monster to HotJobs to within company sites. Looks like a good place to start. The Advanced Preferences settings actually seem more functional than some of the job site searches themselves.

InfoMine: Links to thesis, scholarly reports, journals, peer reviews – mostly all pay to read.

Insider Pages: Easily the nicest looking local search & review site. Only a minor quibble – it seems if there are no reviews, it doesn’t show up which may not be all bad as if you’re looking for a dentist or dry cleaner, maybe it’s more important that the reviewed ones are listed … though also keep in mind, many only have 1 rave review so whether that’s legit and worthy is up to you to decide. As the community grows, it should get more valuable.

Jigadig: Search eBay, Overstock & UBid – while eBay’s search works pretty well, Overstock search is weak so this might be useful to see what other bargains are out there.

Keotag is an interesting oddity. After you enter your search choice, it brings up a few sample photos/images and at the bottom are a row of 15 additional places to search from Newsvine to Google to 43 Things. Unlike some other places, it’s fast and the design animation is smooth and buttery Web 2.0 … so I think I’m hypnotized by that. It’s not brilliant but it is quirky and might be right for you.

Kompass: Not nearly as nice of a B2B directory & search as ThomasNet but it’s serviceable.

Kosmix: Interesting enough to be useful for some people. It presents search results with clear broken down by type of information source: Blog, News, images, etc … then you can also tab across from BASIC to ADVANCED to BLOGS to FORUMS. The only glitch is if there is no “topic/subject” heading created by Kosmix, you keywords that it guesses at what you might want but like an encyclopedia, if there’s no match of listings, you are out of luck. I think if you like information organized and you don’t mind presuming their limited links are the best of the best … again, test it out to see if it’s up your alley in how you like to get info from the web.

LawyerTool.com: Not much to look and technically not really a search – more of a directory of links to search but since this is pretty specialized data/databases that you might not easily stumble across – most government and legal sites seem to need a sitemap for he sitemap, this will save you tons of time so it makes the list (if you need legal info).

LiveDeal.com: A sort of nationwide Craigslist for castoff belongings from household items to pets to cars – listings are cheap but not sure how much business is actually transacted but might be worth checking out.

Local.com: Excellent “yellow pages” search.

LookSmart: Not the first place to search but useful for scholarly & business analysis search. Poor design crams all the results in the middle but useful enough. If you’re the type who’s actually gone to page 15 on a Google search, on page 16, you should then switch to LookSmart. Very niche but worth a little look down the line. The Directory is here.

MEDgle: While Healia is a straightforward search engine, MEdgle is slightly different. selecting from a graphical ‘where it hurts’ or ‘what’s the symptoms,” it searches through its own database to give you a medical diagnosis … it’s probably best for hypochronicas stay far, far away before you are quickly convinced you have some tropical disease … ignoring the bottom bit about having eaten a undercooked baboon in the last 72 hours … so approach with caution and remember, it’s NOT an actual doctor, it just plays a one as a database on the internet.

Ms. Dewey: Okay, it’s not particularly useful and loads slowly but if you would like an attractive librarian who walks and motions at you before, during your searches (she is fully dressed, you perv) – here ya go. Is it weird. Sure. Is it useful – not really but if have a lot of time during your workday and you are tired of Google’s white space, here ya go. The reason you should bookmark is it’s the perfect website search to replace in OTHER people’s browsers. And if you search on Ms. Dewey on MsDewey.com, you can get the full scoop on the woman.

MusicSearcher: Not a high recommendation – sparse, not very attractive but seemingly functional. Type in artist to get discography info – click on LP/CD to get track info. Not nearly as nice as many other places but delivers info fast if you’re just looking for some basic info. Not great but useable.

NewsNow (UK): They are not kidding, if you want a lot of news – fast, now and from around the world – did I mention NOW?, this is a great site to check out. In addition the search engine is blazing fast for corporate, financial & news searches.

Oddpath: Not indespensible yet but we could definitely use more local searches and this is a good start – very fast, clean design.

Oodle: Classified Search nationwide – probably better off on eBay … but worthwhile.

OpinMind: A search through Twitter-like blog postings – not much point-a-to-point-b info but might be useful for market intelligence – for instance, you can type in your company name and see the “sentimeter” where you stand if you stand at all … you get a listing of positive blog thoughts on the left and those that are “con” on the rigt and a sentimeter measurement scale … and it’s also a chance to catch up on teenager SMS 🙂

Phaster: Phaster is a tough call – perhaps if it were better looking, it would be ore inviting to use – now, it seems like you (as the user) is asked too much. It bills itself as a “Encyclopedia Reference Desk” and you can search several dozen serious research and info DB sites though NOT all at once so unlike most search engines – you really need to decide what you want to search the “Exploratorium” choice or the “Encyclopedia” choice – my feeling is it’s veritical nad horizontal and just not very inviting. You might feel differently.

Photarium: While mostly a blog directory and there’s no actual search – they have thoughtfully listed every TAG on one (huge) page so you can search on the page for the term and click to go – while not very deep, it might offer you a blog not found elsewhere.

Pretrieve: Public Record Search Engine. I couldn’t find a whole lot but it seems to be linked to another couple dozen online databases so it’s worth a look to test out yourself.

Project Vote Smart: Electorial Candidates DB. The Lobbying Database is here.

Pronto.com: A shopping search engine. Looks pretty good – better than Froogle – looks clean. Seems okay – still not the Google of shopping comparison sites but better organized than most others – worthy of a longer trial.

Recruit.Net: Looks to be a fairly comprehensive overseas jobs search engine & compilation – jobs look to be mostly in Asia – which seems logical.

Releton.com: Normally, I don’t really get the whole dual or more searches since unlike 10 years ago, when the web was then not completely trolled then so I could see you wanting to gather up a slew of searches and see it all but now with Google & others, why not just search on several search engines individually? But Releton has a cool enough feature for marketers and those interesting in SEO or just general search engine ranking dynamics – Releton searches Google & Yahoo with a 50-50 weight to each BUT then offers a slide bar where you can go 100% Google to 0% Yahoo and every point in between and you can see the page rankings change! The average person might not find this fascinating but as a marketing geek, it’s pretty cool.

Riya: Photo/Visual Search. Not brilliant yet but potentially useful.

Rollyo: Interesting concept of creating your own search engine by choosing from your favorites to search from … their blog search is particularly good even if you choose not to create your own.

RSSNetwork: Good collection of RSS feeders and blog coverage – the category page is comprehensive with solid links within – unfortunately the search is pretty bad so essentially search within blogs in non-existent – though you can manually search its directories and sub-listings.

ScienceResearch: From the same guys who brought you the great BusinessResearch.com, here is the drill down search devoted to all things science.

Scirus: A great, serious research source or as they put it, “Scientific Information Only.” Pretty much on target and a great place to look for real information and analysis. The National Science Foundation is here.

Scroogle: Claims to strip out your cookies or identifying IP address – too lazy to test out fully but seems interesting enough. Based on Google search and if you don’t mind the Win95 graphics. Related, From one of our posts, how to stop/pause your Google Search History.

Searchbot: Might be the weirdest new search engine and again, if you have a lot of free time and this one you can actually bring the kids because you do literally build your own search-robot. In the time it takes to literally assemble this searchbot, you could complete 15 other searches but what’s the rush, wouldn’t you rather drag illustrated elements to piece together a robot and then give it search brains? There is a cool animated graphic of the Google and Yahoo logo flying into its’ brain pan – then it returns results in 9 thumbnails. It’s all very slick and the animation is better than a lot airing on TV but it really depends on how much energy you wish to expend on building a robot to a search you can do in Google and Yahoo in 3 seconds?

SearchBug: Not exactly the smartest name but a reasonably fast and extensive people search (of public data records) along with company searches and a variety of reverse lookups.

SEC: Security Exchange Main & EDGAR. FDIC Region Economic Analyses. The Department of Commerce search of its archives (to 2002) are here. The GPO Economic Indicators DB is here. US Int’l Trade info database is here.

Sidekiq: Another multi searcher. Not very attractive looking but fast. A list on the left showcases a couple dozen search choices, clicking brings up the 10 or search engine within each genre (Image Search: Google, Flickr, Snap, etc …). what nice is after you enter your search result, it returns results in your frame on the right – so if you go down the search engine list on your left, and just starting clicking, it refreshes the right frame with your new search results – smart. Most others who boost as many always go to the site forcing you to come back to search again AND re-typing the search query. Sidekiq is much smarter than that.

Summarize: Nice straightforward, clean design. Type in a product you’re interested in, it will round up every review of the product. There is a color bar to show you the range and grouping of reviews – plus further details of the reviews by clicking on item. Very fast.

Srchr: I’m not really convinced multi searches are very useful for searches itself but rather interesting in a marketing, SEO and marketing intelligence sense and of the multitudes out there, at least Srchr has the right interface (even if it could use a little sprucing up). Typing in your phrase will search a half dozen sites – some others potentually will search 20 sites but if you have to key or copy 20 times, what’s the point?

SurfWax: If you want your search results with no summaries (no “preview” snippet of text within link) on the front page so you can see 30 links without having to scroll. If you click on the magnifying glass, it opens the link on the right frame (in text format – no graphics) but what’s interesting it lists all words that appear on the web page as “Site’s FocusWords” and offers you a chance to read that portion of the website without actually going there. I’m intrigued and will test it out further.

TalkDigger: I’ll tentatively add it here even though I didn’t find any immediate usefulness. In theory, it will track “conversations” across the web/blogs, etc … but the search engine seemed weak and returned random results. But it might be worth exploring further for market research.

ThomasNet: “the most comprehensive resource for industrial information, products, services, CAD drawings, and more …” NOT KIDDING – this is how you built a directory. Wow.

TrivialTV: An all legal/no pirate TV episode directory. Not very pretty but functional. Click on letter and then TV show to find LEGAL links – most are links to Amazon Unbox, Apple iTunes or Google Video (many are pay to view).

Trulia: A Real Estate Home for Sale search engine. Plus an interesting “Heat Map” feature highlighting hot action. If you’re just looking for an apartment, here’s a nice Google maps mashup, MapsKrieg.

Ujiko: I was going to downgrade them down but then thought, you almost feel like Wesley Crusher, when you move your mouse around, the bars move around like you’re a navigator on the Enterprise. Are the search results any good? They’re acceptable but like Ms. Dewey, if you’re at work and you are in no hurry, why not have a little fun. Would I actually use this? no, but if you would like to pretend you’re flying the Enterprise … if the added the sounds from the old SIMON game, it would be perfect 🙂

Ulinkx: Lots of videos, good search – looks to be more international in scope so that’s nice. Looks solid.

USGov: Official U.S. Government portal. Looks pretty complete and everything in one place. Consumer Safety Recall DB here. FAA Air Traffic Delays.

WASALive: Interesting combo search of news & blogs so most of the search results are very fresh. Maybe more useful for buzz trending but potentially interesting.

Web 2.0 Search Engine: Seems to be a good search engine devoted to Web 2.0 topics for webmasters, marketers & designers.

WebMD: Nothing really wrong with this massive site as the search results are delivered blazing fast and in tabs of WEBMD, MEDLINE & the WEB. WebMD of course being medical information from WebMD in the form of info, blogs, etc … Medline is medical research info from journals and reports. You can decide whether Healia or WebMD better serves your needs. WebMD also has a Symptom Checker.

Wink: Searches through online social communities. Nice but not exactly startling since you need a name or screen name to search … good results but you could easily search each site individually but it does get it in one feel swoop. Useful.

Yahoo: Just in case anyone thought I forgot. I don’t particularly like the search engine but the portal itself is one of the cornerstones of the internet. Kids site now all corporate – just called Yahoo Kids. Also check out a beta of Yahoo Mindset which gives you links and a toggle slider of RESEARCH v SHOPPING – as you move the slider towards one side or the other, your results adjust. Interesting – not great yet but interesting.

YoName: Another social network search. Has one nice feature better than WINK, it offers a dropdown window where they grab the avatar photo from that page so you get a quicker ID if it’s who you’re looking for. Searches a couple extra social sites so it’s got that going for it.

Zillow: The Real Estate Price Search & Estimator. Of course, some areas are way off the mark but a good foundation and with more info each day, it should get better.

ZoomInfo: Decent Company profile, executive search (some portions PAID), etc – not great but useful enough.

SO WHAT IF THE DATA PURPOSE IS HIDDEN BY INSCRUTABLE ICON DESIGN, IT’S DIFFERENT – NOT GOOD DIFFERENT, JUST DIFFERENT.

Girafa: Another thumbnail preview searcher. Nice looking site and page design – only problem, their search database is pretty small – it seems to imply they use a human directory – if so, they need to hire better humans because their search results are strangely off target.

Grokker: Searches Yahoo & Wikipedia together – um, yea, how would we ever manage that by ourselves? Offers a graphic circle with sheets of paper to represent something – when an icon requires instructions, “CATEGORY CIRCLES represent more search results,” the icon is now rendered POINTLESS – or your icon needs redesigning.

Kartoo: Spends way too much energy & processing power drawing their genie and like Grokker – thinks if you deliver a bunch of ‘sheets of paper’ icons in a circle encircling your search query, that’s a good thing – trust me, it’s not. So, if you really, really, really enjoyed the dancing MS Windows paperclip, boy do I have a website for you.

KWMap: Stands for Keyword Map. When they say hit or miss, this search exemplifies that phrase. You either get something interesting or you get a graphic representation of antler nubs if they haven’t gotten around to drawing the “tree” of your search. It’s definitely not another search engine but it’s got a ways to go before it’s really useful. It’s has promise – it outlines in visual form your search words and related keywords. You can then click on them to navigate further down – the problem is that beyond the main search and one or two levels, the actual links and website returns drop to zero. Interesting concept but until it gets popluated with a ton more data, it’s not very useful but worthy of a link and a perusal.

LivePlasma: Movie, music & entertainment search & “guidance” by linking what you like with other choices by showing off the “6-degrees” of what you like with something else you might and results are displayed as pretty bubbles but search results make very little sense.

Mnemomap: Beyond their search of Yahoo, Flickr, & YouTube – did not really understand from their results what they are attempting to do with their visual mapping – other than to state the obvious (if I search for Coconuts, I’m sure Hawaii will turn appear somewhere – I understand if you label Hawaii on a line and if I click on it I can go to Hawaii as a subject but that’s not the case here). Well, it’s in alpha so eventually it might be something but as of now – not much.

Quintura: Another cloud/bubble/spiral/6 degrees visual website search. Interesting, yes. Actually useful? No. They have a search engine for kids that looks cute – keep in mind it’s very young – I think for under 8 – if your search is more complex than a one word search like DOG, you don’t get much of a response.

IT’S GOOGLE POWERED SO IF YOU SECRETLY WANT TO USE GOOGLE BUT PREFER IT ENCASED IN ANOTHER SHELL …

AOL Search, Blogher (women only bloggers – uses Google Search), Crawler (maybe the nicest looking Google powered), iHound, Oihoi, Lukol, Mapshark (Google Map Search), Metagopher (Web 1998 design using Google, why?), Nutshell (Google Search + ToDo/Notes except they don’t seem to be integrated – no drag & drop so WTH?), SearchStreet, Soople (basically places all of the speciality Google searches in a easier to understand format), & ZenSearch (Very un-Zen colors and un-Zen flashing ad links).

Also note that Google is offering custom search (refined/defined) search engines so the flood will start soon.

JASE – JUST JASE. JUST ANOTHER SEARCH ENGINE. AN ICEE TO A PROPER SLURPEE …

After viewing nearly 100 of these, at least 40% return the same repeating lame 10 links from my search terms so either they are based on some open source search engine or they are powered by another search engine but not openly revealed. Some try to do something different and fail but most (listed as JASE) seemingly were hoping to build some traffic so they could sell out – and now that is looking pretty slim, most seem to have lost interest and are just around to collect some Adsense money. Maybe I’m wrong but that seems to be my impression of the JASE ones as most deliver a dozen or so links or not much more.

2try4: It is fast. It loads 4 web search site pages side by side – unless you have 2 monitors, it’s it’s unreadable – but if you have two widescreen monitors, wouldn’t you just as easy search 4 places? Concept might be appealing to some – bad execution.

A9: Amazon.com Search + Web Search with two boxes for results – not sure why we need this since you can do a full screen search on Amazon or at MS Live? If anything, since Amazon switched to A9 powered by MS Live, their search for merchandise has gone way downhill.

a993: JASE.

AardvarkBusiness: Not terrible but pretty small potatoes when compared to ThomasNet or Kompass. Choosing the name aardvark doesn’t help.

AbiLogic: Small results, inaccurate.

AllTheWeb: For one month in 2001, it ruled the world but it’s not 2001 anymore.

Amfibi: You can pay $10 to be included within 7 days. Since most search results seems to only turn up a few dozen links – some not even close, I’m guessing it’s not a raging business though the lizard logo looks nice.

Answer51: A Google custom search engine that is supposed to gather up answers from all the “answer” sites but it’s just not good enough. My query was “What is the deepest cave in Mexico?” and none were the right answers but not only that, the links returned were based on keywords within my phrase which is wrong and inaccurate when he search engine is built upon returning results from my ENTIRE QUERY. Try again.

AOL SearchVideo: Not bad but certainly much fewer results than the other video search engines so why bother?

Artwoo: Blog search – some offbeat results. Not necessarily very accurate offbeat results so proceed with caution.

Ask.com: Interesting TV ads. Better search results? No, not really.

Bookhitch: Search through books. Fewer titles than Amazon’s look through books feature.

Bookmach: Very slow and delivered poor results.

Bloglines: A blog searcher that doesn’t seem to find a lot of blog postings – odd.

Blogdigger: Fast but not very current.

Bloggernity: Seemingly thousands of blogs listed but search is weak.

BlogSearchEngine: Powered by IceRocket (see below).

BrowseBlogs: Not to be rude but I think being able to search about 115 blogs is not all that useful.

BullsEye: “Largest Sports and Recreation Search Engine” – the reality is that is true only because it dumps a lot of inaccurate links – anything remotely related to sports is included.

CanLinks.net: If you’re looking for local Canadian links, this is a good one, eh … but not all that useful for others.

Collarity: JASE. (Just Another Search Engine).

Clusty: Really, is that your final choice for the name?

ChaCha: “Human Powered,” Me as Human Response? Me’h.

CrossEngine: Lets you search across the big three websites and about 10 others all at once – again, wouldn’t it be better to search each site individually to get 100% of the results from all of them? It’s not like you’re saving any real time since if you generate 100 links here, that will take you just as long to look as if looked at 10 links from 10 sites? This was useful when no one had the means to crawl the entire internet but clearly that is no longer the case.

Dogpile: It is a pile – not of dogs but delivered from dogs at the other end.

EarthStation9: Claims to search Newsfeeds, Newsgroups, Webrings and Websites so it’s got that going for it. Results vary widely so could be useful but didn’t really seem very interesting – whatever I searched for did not seem to return many results from webrings or newsfeeds.

Enth.com: A sports statistics search though barely launched – very few numbers in the system.

ExactSeek: JASE

Exalead: Offers preview thumbnails of sponsor pages – rest you have to click preview button – lame, search results? Bland.

Excite.com: If you miss 1999 and you want a Google/Yahoo/Ask search …

Fazzle: Offers preview thumbnail of website but not as nice as CometQuery which gives you the thumbnails automatically.

Feedage: Yet another fairly comprehensive blog feeder but with a horrible search so proceed accordingly.

FeedDB: Not extensive but a listing of feeds – only problem is the search engine is not very good – maybe only searches the last few days?

FindAlternative: Yes, that is a command – Find Alternative search engine because this one is JASE.

FindIt.com: JASE.

FindSpot: UK but UK search don’t differ by much. Searches Yahoo & Google.

FindTarget: Uses 10 search engines. Adequate results.

GoFromHere: 10 slots to type in searches with 10 engines. Some reference and resources listed on the left. Adequate. Nothing special.

GoGoSearch: The winner of the most phallic search logo so if you want to annoy H.R., here ya go. As for the results, pretty infantile.

Hitseeker: Seems to list about 50 search engines, returns results the useful of .35 search engines.

HotBot: Still using the 1990’s logo! Results from Ask or MSN.

IceRocket: Blog search that others rave about – it’s fine but hardly seems to be in Technocrati’s league. It’s fine but fine is just middling. They also have an IceSpy which is supposed to be an ‘adult” search but it sends you to the IceRocket page so it’s either nothing or they need to make it clearer. Unless you type some obvious “adult’ word, it pretty much gives you the same slim results.

Info.com: Good name & domain. Not so good search.

IntelSeek: Searches submitted sites.

InfoBuoy: “Internet Simplified.” They are not kidding. You get one link from NEWS, one from BLOG and one from WEB. I do have the admit the results weren’t bad and you can click on MORE RESULTS to get 5 more links to appear so if for some reason, you are satisfied with one result in each category, InfoBuoy certainly cuts down on your reading …

InfoSniff: Horrible name, weak results but in case you wonder what the Top 200 spams phrases are, InfoSniff seems to have created a sub-directory for 195 of them. Worth a look just for that.

iTools: Nothing to do with Apple. Basically a box to search 15 other search engines & directories. Nothing much.

Ixquick: Yea, it’s fast but not the fastest – search results – nothing special. They do offer an international phone directory which might be useful.

iZito: It’s nice to know the Atlanta Olympics blob mascot has a new gig but other than that – JASE.

Jayde: B2B Search but seems to return random results that are not particularly accurate. Not horrible – just not all that useful.

JDGO: JASE.

Langenberg: 10 search engine links but you have fill out each one at a time.

Lexxe: “Natural Language” search. It’s natural language isn’t English as it scolds you about how you ask it questions and then returns bland results.

Linktoria: One of the last directory only sites. Surprise, it’s slim on information and the links provided in most categories are odd and very incomplete (TV has 4 links).

LiveSearch: Microsoft’s name change from MSN (Hotmail now also the bland and forgettable “Live”). Also note, 66% of Microsoft’s OWN EMPLOYEES use Google. So if they won’t use it, why should you?

LuckyButton: Another pointless multi search engine search with a couple dozen buttons – when you send people to that search engine instead of actually building a page of results, why not just go to that site? Because if the links are poor, you have to toggle back anyway – why bother toggling back to LuckyButton … also someone should point out to them it’s not 2006 anymore.

Lycos: It lives but in dog years, it’s old and well, best left to rest.

Mamma Metasearch: JASE

MechanicalBull: Sometimes user generated is just unholy crap.

Megri.com: Weak results. Inaccurate.

Metacrawler: JASE

Middio: Music Video Search – couldn’t find anything I entered. So, I’m not sure of the search capability as they list links to 14,000 videos. You might be better off just clicking on their top 100.

Mojeek: Nothing but the same.

MsFeckles: Yet another 15 search boxes on one page – nicer looking than the other one but you have to fill in or copy 15 times your search words, so why not just go to 15 sites myself separately?

MyStanky: Doesn’t stink but same old, same old as the other 100 search engines within this JASE group.

MyWay: Also based on Ask.com. Excellent TV Grid BTW, Rest of MyWay merely okay.

MyWebSearch: Same old, same old. JASE.

Netscape: Google & AOL & AOLVideo which I think is different than plain AOL since AOL Search is Google. There is a long tedious explanation on Netscape – read it at your leisure.

NetSearchEngine: The hip new thing of 2007, combining community with Google search but until you build a community, all you have is Google Custom Search – I’m unconvinced a community will do much for a search engine unless it’s a “lifestyle” community where you have a broad base of active and lots of new incoming links – technology, gadgets, the Mac are topics where both are true – most others are informational searches – for example, malaria. You think or have it or you are doing a term paper – outside of a couple thousand researchers (who pretty much know more than what they can unearth on Google), who is going to actively maintain an interest? Or a hobby like knitting – yes, lots of active users from beyond a couple dozen sites – maybe, do you really a full blown search engine devoted to it? Interesting concept – I can’t imagine it going very far.

Netvibes: Nice Startpage offerings but search engine nothing to speak of – will either search Yahoo, Google or Ask.

Omgili: Nothing special.

OneBigIndex: Human Directory but weak and inaccurate search results.

Pandia PowerSearch: crawls 4 search engines – nothing special.

PeekYou: People search. Only problem is if the city dropdown list is not very complete so it can only find a limited amount of people – they provide you with a profile page – good luck taking on MySpace.

Pixsy: They call themselves a photo/image search and a lot of people rave about Pixsy but I’m not very impressed. They seem to be partnered with a lot of websites but clicking on them seems to just send you to a normal web page – a search is no more or no less accurate or interesting than using Google IMAGE search and usually a lot fewer results – certainly nowhere near the depth of the best image/photo searchers like PicSearch.

PlanetSearch: Search big three search engines at once – why?

Plazoo: JASE

Pluggd: Podcast search. Weird design – not early as complete as most other podcast searches. I guess you can search inside podcasts – for me, not much use there but I suppose as podcasts grow in importance and contain info not attainable by regular search …

Podscope: Okay podcast search, not as nice as others.

PreFound: Another “community” search that ultimately comes down to a community rating and ranking a search engine results … the problem is that you need a large interested community and people who are loking for the same results … in this case, they return links from Wikipedia and Google … why do I need PreFound? Aren’t Wikipedia & Google’s already the ultimate “PreFound” search engine – One community and one smart algorythmns?

RawSugar: Another Digg with few readers and not very good search results.

Retrevo: Consumer electronics shopping search but frankly the results seem very similar to a regular search engine so it might not be a bad tool but doesn’t seem indispensable yet. No where near as nice and as usefully designed as THEFIND.

RocketNews: Random searches return minimal and shallow results.

ScrubtheWeb: 1998 design … Poor search results and ads.

Search.com: This proves that having a perfect domain name means nothing when you deliver average, very ordinary search results. Part of CNET.

SearchAllInOne: Searches 6 search engines – dull results.

SearchBigDaddy.com: Type in a fat guy’s stomach – get results that are not very nutritious.

SearchGateway: 1997 PC design. 8 boxes to type and search other search engines one by one.

SearchIt: Weak.

Searchmash: Presume they search multiple sites but your basic results. JASE.

Searchles: is this Search-less? Or Search-Lez?In either case, it’s a video search in theory, not so much in reality.

Similicio.us: Type in a website you like and it offers smiliar sites as suggestions but most are pretty obvious answers. Most sites you enter produce no results. This might be useful for people who are just starting out on the internet but after 3 months, not much more to it than if you like Fiji Apples, it will ask if you Red Apples?

Snap.com: Average, middling results – alleged preview thumbnail on right but rarely actually shows up. Their popup collaboration with WordPress & others seems to work much better.

Sputtr: Beautiful Web 2.0 design but for actual usage? Sure, it seemingly features 30 websites you can search with one typing of your keyword/phrase but then it sends you off to that site and you have to toggle back to Sputtr – so what’s the point? Why not just open them all in tabs? Take a look at Sidekiq – ugly as dirt but at least you only have to type in your search phrase once and you can visit some 60 sites by clicking along the left and results are in the right frame. Sputtr is beautiful but you will search at Sputtr speed as you constantly toggle back.

Streakr: Another online social searcher – not sure there’s enough business to go around for the 4 or 5 already in place but Streakr – while an interesting design delivers results that are either worthwhile or truly worthless, you decide. The other online social searches either return a list of potentials and let you look at a brief summary of the names or avatar/photos and lets you decide if it one of the listed or it returns “nothing.” Streakr delivers every possible social online listing with your keyword (name/screen-name) … to me, that seems pointless. If I know the guy’s name is Tom Smith, why would I want a result of Jake Smith? Why not just use Google?

SuperSearchIII: Type in search term, select from 12 search engines … oh, and go blind from ill advised use of MS design colors.

Surcha: Search me why this is still around – JASE.

Tiltomo: Searches FLICKR – returns slightly larger thumbnails – more accurate? Not really. Better than just searching in FLICKR? Not that I can tell …

Turbo10: Uses 10 search engines. Unfortunately, it still think it’s 1992 and all the information is in a 7″ square in the middle of a giant white page. REsults are middling so we’re not missing much.

TVEyes: TV clips search – solid – not as complete as others.

Url.com: Great domain name – searches Google, Yahoo & MSN … JASE!

Veoda: Uses 5 search engines – then assigns a rating to result, presumably averaging the position of your search within the 5 search engines. Fast but not particularly useful since it’s clear that Google is delivering better results than the others so weighing the 8th position of MSLive is not the same as Google’s 7th position.

VDoogle: Weak Video Search.

Vivisimo: Very soothing look & feel but results – very irritatingly average.

VmGo: Me’h. JASE.

Vroosh: JASE.

Webcrawler: So very tired, we will just crawl this little bit of the internet and rest a while …

Web-Search: Meta searches about 15 search engines. Horrible looking. Pointless.

WebTaxi: Short distance drive to their approved online shopping ads – gee, thanks.

WhoNu: One search bar offers you a chance to search a couple dozens sites from the major players to photos (even monochrome versus color), video, podcasts, etc , etc … The problem is the icons are way too small and then there’s text underneath – it’s a decent concept but poor icon & design execution – if you design an icon, it’s to SAVE the person time looking at something, not create more confusion so that it’s easier to type in www.Yahoo.com verus guessing what a starburst with a checkmark icon means?

WindSeek: JASE.

WiseNut: Owned by LookSmart which has some positive points in being able to do more scholarly searches of white papers, research reports, etc … but why would you then have a search engine that produces an entire different set of results that are middling, average and JASE? Strange.

Xcavator.Net: Searches for stock photos & purchase rights usage – nice looking platform but image bank pretty sparse. The TAG’s on the front page will produce results but if you seach for specifics, not much there.

Yoople: We want people to rate the search results! As a “People” out here in internet land, what I’m saying is … no. We want you the search engine to be smarter than me and to pull up results as people click on them. I don’t expect to manually rank results and then go to the results. Too much work. You do most of it, okay?

YooFindIt.com: Directory site – most links from 2004. Weak.

YourHotSearch: It seems to a guy in a basement is trying to start a directory/search engine. If this were 1992, he might be okay but 2007, uh, no. Just like in 1902, you could try to start up a car company in your garage … in 2007, uh, no.

YuFind: The most interesting thing about this site is their logo in JPEG is way too low resolution – search results, equally fuzzy, dim and low res.

Zuula: Another multiple searcher. Nothing to write home about or to use.

POWERED BY YAHOO SEARCH

AltaVista (it lives with a new logo and Yahoo results), Congoo, Funadoo (searches a bunch of Yahoo’s properties + Amazon – it’s fast and nice looking but necessary?) Go.com (Disney/ABC), Go2 (solid mobile search – built into phones, web search only nothing special except it’s for searching local businesses), SearchtheWeb2 (apparently if you want to show people how slow Yahoo might be and return no results, just visit Yahoo search through SearchtheWeb and watch its stock drop) & Webwag.

WEIRD

A.U.R.A. (BETA): From Microsoft, stands for Advanced User Resource Annotation – something about a barcode scanner UPC search of store items? Didn’t really get it. A database of everything on Earth with a UPC? Not very logical.

Goyams: Well technically it lets you assign a percentage to search and weigh results of the big three – why? Not sure. Wouldn’t it be better to do three separate 100% searches on the big three to net you 100% of the best results versus assigning different percentages – after all, why bother with a 20% search of Yahoo? Weird.

Odeo: Seems to be a music search & recommendation site but you would think most people who type in the search bar is looking for a song – its search results cover everything on the internet defeating the whole music search thing – so why not just go to MS Live for poor search results? Strange.

Slifter: Mobile Search. Type in product and your zip code to find out where to buy. Slow. Weird results.

Tallstreet: Game the search engine marketplace? Put your money where the rankings are? Weird.

Trexy: Cartoony Win98 interface. Search results, cartoonish – it then creates another 10 paths you can choose – um, yea, thanks for not helping but making it more confusing.

TOO COOL FOR ME? COULDN’T UNDERSTAND HOW THEY WORK

Boxxet: MySpace except it’s just for you to showcase your likes and purchases?

Del.icio.us: good bookmark backup/share – not much of a working search engine.

GoDefy: Claims to be Marketing & Comparison Shopping Search Engine but seemed more like a Internet Marketing Business Comparison. Could be useful but not sure why it’s called a search engine (since it only seems to search its own info database). I’m confused.

MetaGlossary: Really, a giant dictionary? Maybe there’s more to it than that but I couldn’t figure it out.

Mooter: draws lines from your search query – if anything it makes your search more difficult as it splits up every word from your search phrase. Really, not useful and the lines are just weird. Mooter, you are moot.

CiteSeer: Scientific Research Paper Database? With info from NASA & NSF? It’s a bit too wonky for me so either it’s spot on for those who need it and just too strange for anyone outside to understand its formatting and design or it’s just weird or I’m just a moron … okay, all might be true 🙂

Retrievr: Draw in the box and Retrievr will look within FLICKR for something to match it? Maybe because I can’t draw with a mouse? I guess no one wants to bring up the TAG or SEARCHWORD solution? You tell me, I drew the object on the left in the little box, the results are on the right …

Squidoo: Near as I guess, it’s the Web 2.0 version of About.com which means some entries are encyclopedia like and others are just ramblings – so if your search turns up nothing, they ask you to write one … awl-right …

StumbleUpon: Well, I suppose that’s one way to surf the web – random like. Yea, I know it’s quasi Digg-quasi MySpace and quasi-something else – it seems they wanted to be different from “43 Things” for the sake of being different.

Swoogle: Semantic Web Search? What does it mean? Don’t know. Don’t care.

Tagjag: Tagging & RSS – Too time consuming for me to figure out.

THE INTERNET – SCARY – TOO BIG. WE’LL JUST LOOK AROUND THE CORNER FOR YOU. WHO NEEDS MORE THAN 10 RESULTS OF ANYTHING?

Aeiwi: Most results are ads.

Boing: Not affiliated with Boing Boing or Gerald McBoing and apparently thinks searching 1,500 documents is all you need as the foundation of a search engine.

FindInternetTV: Lots of links but the search is laughably inept so as long as you don’t actually have to search for anything on the site, you’re okay or perhaps the search to them should be like a TV remote that just arbitrarily changes channels?

Gimenei: Mostly ad links. It’s for sale! Hurry!

Gnoosic: Music, movies & book recommendations. It asks you for three that you like – well, if you know three, you have a pretty good idea, right? But it gets better. You can pretty type in any name and it draws pretty bubbles and artists that are close and further away. No matter what you type, the EAGLES come up. Now, I like the EAGLES but I don’t really need a database to tell me if I like U2, I might like the EAGLES … um, d’uh … of course, if I type in RILO KILEY, the EAGLES pop up again. Gnoosic? Just no say nooo …

Hog Search: At least they were honest and didn’t call it WHOLE HOG because it’s a minimal search.

Kostenloses: Wretched design. Equally inept search results.

LambsLink: Directory site – pay to be listed. A quick glance shows 200 links – at $30 each, that’s some serious cash … if you’re 9 years old.

MozDex: Open search … “open” works for lots of things – search is not one of them. Painfully bad search results.

PleaseRetrieve: Designed on Win95 – returns just ads as results.

SearchHippo: Why a Hippo? I suppose I should have seen its small database results a-coming as its directory only lists about 40 topics including Anna Kournikova, Flowers & Dragonball.

Search-Info: Returns few results. It’s search engine directory features 4 listings.

SearchRamp: Not much. Don’t bother.

Shere: Weak search.

WebSeek: Inaccurate results.

What to Rent: I’ll bet there are villagers in Nepal who have seen most of their recommendations (some movies recommended to me include: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Close Encounters and Casablanca) – this would be the perfect site for an Amish person during their ‘wilding’ years, “Rumspringa,” otherwise, anyone older than 11 has seen 100% of the recommendations. There is a wacky psychology test as if it’s all scientific then it recommends Amilie and Animal House.

WhatUSeek: “These aren’t the results you’re looking for.” Weak, small and inaccurate results.

TIMED OUT (12 MB BROADBAND – IF YOU TIME OUT, YOU HAVE PROBLEMS)

AllTh.At: And you don’t even get a bag of chips. If fact, I got no search results after 3 minutes – it searches 5 search engines including Google, yahoo & Amazon, normally three of the fastest pings on Earth … Yawn.

Ditto: Image search. Takes 3 minutes and then times out.

Netvue: It says Beta so maybe that’s it but 3 minutes later, the Mac circle launch bar graphic they lifted from Apple just keeps rotating around.

NOT FUNCTIONAL – OTHER

360view4u: “msxml3.dll error ‘800c0005′”

8 Lights: Search Results: No results found! NOT too bright!

AlphaSearch: 10 minutes – still searching.

Blogsaic: Blogs are featured as Photo Tiles on the front page – did not work in Firefox. Clicking on tile brought up blank popup – not sure what is what.

Datavor: Data fell into Black Hole? Yes, Datavor.

Daypop: Weak search results.

DMoz/OPD (Netscape): Fast search. Empty/zero results … an “Open Directory” search … clearly not the way to go.

EntireWeb: “Your search – did not match any documents.” When you mean EntireWeb, clearly, they mean something else …

FamilyFriendlySearch: 403 error

Galaxy: Searches own directory only.

GoClick: Go click on something else – empty results here.

GoshMe: Signup for a search engine?

IThakiKids: No results in Firefox.

Lurpo: No real idea of what is going on here. Quasi directory but empty searches.

MakeMePopular.com: Apparently it didn’t work – last updated 2005.

Mardox: No results.

Mnemo: Not sure what it is – didn’t work for me.

Multimeta: No results or just ads.

Proteus: Worst design ever. Couldn’t get it to search – clicking on CIR produced no additional movement other than some java error?

RedESearch: No results.

SearchTurtle: Actually fast – but main reason is it only searches its own directory – lots of ‘no results.’

SearchWiz: Impressive Web 2.0 logo even though site was last updated in 2005 – less impressive – no results.

Sirseek: Google ads load – nothing else.

Slideshow: Apparently will list results as slideshow, offered zero results using Google as search.

SocialGrapes: Search online dating sites. Doesn’t work in Firefox.

Splat!: No results found …

Spock: Invite only. Not logical 🙂 Also good luck with the Viacom lawsuit.

SportsSearch: Searched for 3 minutes and then went 404.

Spurl: Another bookmarker site, Did not test search.

SuperCrawler: spin, spin, spin – no results. Even directory pages loads excruciatingly slow – server in some guy’s closet?

UpScoop: Didn’t go further after this instruction, “Import your email address book and discover which of your friends are on social networks…” Maybe you have to be 12 to jump in … I said, “As If!”

VortexDNA: “mywebDNA, powered by VortexDNA, is a Firefox™ plug-in that highlights the Google™ search results most relevant to your core purpose and values. With mywebDNA, you are the filter.” Me’h, just not that interested in downloading plug-ins.

WebBrain: Note says it does not work on a Mac. That’s a good one. Is your door also 4 1/2 feet tall so anyone taller can forget about it?

Webaroo: If you’ve ever thought, this web is nice – if I could just download it onto my hard drive, I wouldn’t have to worry about logging on. So, they have packaged up the web in packages you can download. It requires “Microsoft .NET 2.0 Framework” so I can’t tell you how it works.

Yoono: Search community + Sign in. Thanks but no thanks.

ZapMeta: No results for a phrase search that has at least 3 million links elsewhere. The Directory with a thumbnail preview might be useful for some people.

There are another couple dozen with dead/broken links so that’s the 300+ count – I didn’t bother to list them.