Google http://www.google.com Google is unusual in that it ranks a site according to how many other 'important' sites link to it. Although this is an inspired and effective approach, it means that new sites are likely to get a low ranking, and really specialist sites don't get ranked at all. Then again, it caches old pages, has a billion and a bit pages in its database - and it's very, very fast. (Jan 01)
All the Web http://www.alltheweb.com This is the showcase site for technology developed by Norwegian company FAST (Fast Search & Tracking). It's, quick and clean in simple search mode, while the advanced settings offer more flexibility. Highly recommended. (Jan 01)
AltaVista http://www.altavista.com AltaVista is a powerful and popular search engine of the spidery variety. Unfortunately, with heaps of resources cluttering the front page - news, currency converter translation services (try going directly to http://babel.altavista.com for text or website translations), etc. - it can be a bit of a pain, and a slow one at that, if all you want is a quick search. There is also a slightly UK-specific site http://uk.altavista.com which might help speed and narrow a search down. (May 01)
RagingSearch http://ragingsearch.altavista.com Better by far is Raging Search, AltaVista's stripped-to-the-bone search site. Despite using much the same rating-by-referral system as Google, it returns far fewer hits. The advanced settings are customisable and flexible. (Jan 01)
Excite http://www.excite.com Excite's, busy home page allegedly has a search buried somewhere among the add-ons. To see what everyone else is looking for, follow the Voyeur link. What a wholesome bunch we Netizens are if this is to be believed. We suspect it's not. (Jan 01)
AskJeeves http://www.askjeeves.com or the UK specific site http://www.ask.co.uk/ Ask a natural question and Jeeves will point you to the answer - in theory. In practice, despite the claims about hard- working human editors (spot the oxymoron), the approach is often more miss than hit. Q: When did Glasgow Celtic win the European Cup? A: Buy your party goods here. (May 01)
Oingo http://www.oingo.com By 'levering the Oingo Ontology', this site attempts to interpret the underlying meaning of a search query in order to return intelligent results. There's plenty of guff about 'meaning-based search', 'semantic gaps' and 'interpretive algorithms' but it works best (very well, in fact) - if you manually specify the context for each keyword. (May 01)
SimpleSearch http://www.simplesearch.com If you're new to this interweb thing, you'll be wanting a search engine with stabilisers. That's the thinking here, anyway. And if the results thrown up by this simplicity-made-even-simpler concern seem uncannily close to those from Ask Jeeves, that's because one powers the other. (Jan 01)
Moreover http://w.moreover.com (Yes, only one 'w'.) This impressive, professional site garners newsfeeds from many sources. Stories are edited and presented in summary form with links to their sources. Alongside the breaking headlines, there are 300 or more specific categories. (May 01)
News Index http://www.newsindex.com News Index has been around since 1996 and sports a relatively unsophisticated interface. Good for breadth of opinion but not as comprehensive as the younger upstart, Moreover (above). (Jan 01)
NewsNow http://www.newsnow.co.uk News is browsable by time period, from current (refreshes every five minutes) to a few hours ago to 30 days old. It's presented with a strong UK bias and is searchable by keyword. (Jan 01)
DealTime http://www.dealtime.co.uk A very good site that turns up all sorts of results in all sorts of categories - more like a catalogue than a straight websearch with an engine that gives good up to date links. (May 01)
Shopsmart http://www.shopsmart.com Maybe no so great an interface, but still comes up with good prices, with the same American look & feel as DealTime. (May 01)
PC Index http://www.pcindex.co.uk Specific for computer hardware. The interface is somewhat raw in nature, it reports on quite a few suppliers with results that can be sorted by supplier or price. It also features fast links to product categories.(May 01)
Mirago http://www.mirago.co.uk While many big search engines have regional variations, this is a thoroughbred British affair. It is comprehensive and adept at returning relevant results. Content filters make it family-friendly to boot. (Jan 01)
UK Plus http://www.ukplus.co.uk The hook here is that every site is hand-picked and reviewed by "a team of qualified editors". But how and why a highland dress outfitters comes to be listed in the Gay & Lesbian section remains something of a puzzle. (May 01)
Searchengine http://uk.searchengine.com Formerly known as SearchUK, this crawler concentrates on UK domains and lets you weed out commercial from academic and government sites. Usefully, you can group results by domain or class (.com, org and so forth). (May 01)
UKMax http://www.ukmax.com A bit of an oddity, this one. The Advanced search feature is anything but, and the company's 'About Us' page is curiously blank. Narrowing a search to sites with, say, a Welsh bias returns hits that are then excluded in a broader UK-wide search. Why, one knows not. (Jan 01)
Lycos http://www.lycos.com Now primarily a portal, Lycos pulls its search results from FAST (see above - Search Engines) and its index from the Open Directory (below). (Jan 01)
About http://about.com This is "The Human Internet", no less - and no bad thing. About is a network of specialists writing about and linking to their pet subjects. Try the co.uk site for an excellent local knowledge base. (Jan 01)
Open Directory Project http://dmoz.org Ah, the old spirit of the is Internet alive and well in California with this "self-regulating republic" of unpaid editors striving to index the best sites free from the influence of commerce. Several search engines draw from its impressive database. (Jan 01)
Yahoo! http://www.yahoo.com Yahoo is the grand-daddy of directories and its hierarchical indexing is second to none. The $199 'Business Express' submission service arguably muddies the waters of editorial purity, but a listing here is seen as essential. That makes for successful searches. (Jan 01)
Northern Light http://www.northernlight.com More for seekers of wisdom than warez, its aim is "to index and classify all human knowledge to a unified consistent standard and make it available to everyone in the world in a single integrated search". Hubris indeed. Includes a reference database culled from print publications. (Jan 01)
LookSmart Australia http://www.looksmart.com.au Just like its global counterpart, the Oz version of LookSmart returns editorially-approved but paid-for links. The service is pretty reliable but terribly slow, even on a broadband connection. It's a distance thing. (May 01)
Orientation Africa - Asia and more ... http://af.orientation.com A good centre for all things African. Searches can be global, specific to the African continent or particular countries. Results were sometimes sparse; it's kind of daft having an amusement parks section if you then leave it empty - but that's probably more a reflection of the limited material available than a lack of effort by the developers. Also pretty much the same as Africa try Orientation Asia http://as.orientation.com with news, business reports, travel and weather information complementing the search and directory features. A good place to catch the flavour of Eastern culture. Lots of other countries and regions are linked from either site. (May 01)
ArabBay http://www.arabbay.com A smart-looking site sensibly sub-divided into countries and categories, with a global search facility holding it all together. However, the content is woefully lacking. There's no entry under sport in the Egypt section, for example, despite the booming scuba diving industry in and around Sharm-el-Sheik. (Jan 01)
Hotwin http://www.hotwin.com Closer to home, HotWin is an interesting collection of e-commerce sites scattered across Europe. It's multilingual, rates each merchant with a star system and a few choice words, and encourages users to add their own reviews. We found the director more fruitful than the search facility. (May 01)
Search Engine Watch http://www.searchenginewatch.com Not a meta searching tool, but interesting nonetheless as it is a site devoted to tips on using and submitting to search engines, and so gives an insight into the search engine logic. (Jan 01)
Dogpile http://www.dogpile.com Great name, great look, great site. Up to 14 engines can be queried and you can customise the order to suit. Forget fussing with syntax and send the pooch off to fetch. There are speciality categories, too - MP3, business news, images - but these were less impressive than general searching. (Jan 01)
MetaCrawler http://www.metacrawler.com A very clean interface from this, the first of the meta search services. Again, it's customisable; again, it offers multimedia searching; and again, it's most effective when left unrestricted. (Jan 01)
Ixquick http://www.ixquick.com And so it is. Ixquick aggregates the results from several search engines, so any site that makes it into more than one top 10 list is guaranteed a high spot. Throw in a little syntax and a wildcard or two, and it filters out the engines that can't follow your Boolean logic. (Jan 01)
Search http://www.search.com Cool URL but we weren't terribly impressed with the results from this CNET site. There is no explanation of the methodology used to rank results, and bits were sparse and often irrelevant. Try limiting searches to specific subject areas, such as breaking news, for better results. (Jan 01)
WebFerret http://www.ferretsoft.com CNET rival ZDNet now owns WebFerret, a moderately useful and completely free meta search utility. It searches on the fly on your desktop with no need to fire up a browser. On the downside, it's almost completely non-configurable. (Jan 01)
Searchgate http://www.searchgate.co.uk Searchgate is a directory service aimed at student types at home and abroad. It uses both the Open Directory and its own custom-built collection of 3,000-odd links to point users towards targeted resources. The emphasis is more on academia than lifestyle - a search on 'spliff' struck out - but that's a refreshing change. (Jan 01)
Health on the Net http://www.hon.ch Not a whiff of quackery on this much-respected not-for-profit compendium of all matters medical. It won't give you a prescription for Prozac but you can research most ailments to the nth degree. If you're prone to hypochondria, avoid like the plague you think you've got. (Jan 01)
Cheese http://www.cheese.com Yes, a search engine for cheese. How daft - and how very, very tasty. There are 652 cheeses in the databank with notes on each clearly written by an enthusiast. In which cheese does "the greenish-blue penicillin mould impart a sharp, spicy flavour"? Start searching... (Jan 01)
Cheese - mark II http://www.wgx.com/cheesenet/lit/ Yes, another specialist site for cheeses - this link takes you to poetry. What can one say; people just like cheese really. Mmmmm cheesy, and a bit literaturey .... (Feb 01)
CurryHouse.net http:// www.curryhouse.net Really a rather good list of Curry Houses - as an example 65 in Edinburgh and lots and lots in London. My favourites in London and Edinburgh were listed. A winning site, though the info on some seemed to be missing. (Jan 01)
CurryGuideUK http://uk.curryguide.com And another one for curry, too. The search feature, for want of a better term, encourages natural language queries so we sought out 'the best curry house in Leicester'. Of the top five hits, four were dead links. The winner by default was the Warren Tandoori in, erm, London - which is where the majority of the links are - only one in Scotland (in St Andrews) and that search brought up one in Bristol .... Hmmmmm. But hey ho, you've got to start somewhere. Not half as good as CurryHouse.net, above. (Jan 01)
The Beer Site BAD LINK - cannot find the beer link for the time being (May 01) Now wash it all down with "the largest depository of beer and brewing links on the Internet" A bold claim, we fancy, and quite possibly true. From homebrew to Nooky Broon, all boozy life is here. Be wary of drooling over your keyboard. (Jan 01)
Glass's guide to pre-owned or second owner cars http://www.glass.co.uk Not so good site to find prices for your second hand car; they used to have a price guide feature; as I wrote in March 2001 "- though the real price for a non-commercial deal is somewhere between the "excellent" part exchange price, and the retail price." - those pricing facilities seem to have disappeared. But there is still lots of info for the buyer as this is a trade site. There are all sorts of industry bits and pieces here as well. (May 01)
Parkers used car price guide http://www.parkers.co.uk A better site to get the feel for the price you should be paying, or expecting. Designed more for the private user - though the written version of the guide has more information and is more browsable than the website.
Looksmart http://www.looksmart.com This is a paid-for directory compiled by people rather than robots. A search for pubs in Wales turned up a mere six hits, but we did find Nirvana in Swansea: "The Brunswick has one large room and one bar. Very little happens there..." (Jan 01)
GoTo http://www.goto.com GoTo operates on a pay-for-placement model. This means that big spenders get top rankings and have to cough up for every click-through to their sites. Poor Dick Blick - we cost this Illinois art materials supplier 96 cents and didn't buy so much as a brush. (Jan 01)
Godado http://www.godado.com Godado awards top spot to whoever bids most for the relevant keywords. Other hits are pooled from a selection of engines. But why did a games site, Planet Deerhunter, turn up top in a UK-specific search on 'electric blanket'? (Jan 01)
UK250 http://www.uk250.co.uk UK250's goal is to list 250 separate categories which each host a maximum of 100 paid-for links (at the rate of £375 per year per site, thank you very much). It's early days yet but a mixed bag is perhaps a fair summation. (Jan 01)
Just35 http://www.just35.com And another one. Here there are just 35 links within each category - although, it should be noted, an awful lot of sub-categories. Web sites are reviewed and rated. Not too many turkeys all told, but poor Welbourne Opticians certainly gets a pasting. (Jan 01)
KidsClick http://www.kidsclick.org Very American, but a well-researched (by librarians, no less) and thoroughly comprehensive site. We weren't convinced that Bo Diddley deserved top dog slot in the rock music index, but elsewhere we had few quibbles. We found the categorised directory more useful than the search tools. (Jan 01)
Kid's Search Tools http://www.rcls.org/ksearch.htm A site that offers access to a dozen or so third-party search engines and directories, all of which are geared up to find kid-centric content. It may take the longhand approach to meta- searching - i.e. you can only query one engine at a time - but it's a good gateway to the moderated Web nonetheless. (Jan 01)
Yahooligans! http://www.yahooligans.com A great site - all the power of Yahoo! scaled down and skilfully targeted at kids. The index is a pearl and the search engine consistently impressed. Try Multiplication Rock and sing those pesky times tables straight into memory. Excuse us while we regress a while... (Jan 01)
BuffySearch http://www.buffysearch.com Okay, so it's not exactly a kids' search engine. And yes, it's an entirely gratuitous entry in this list. But Buffy (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, of course) is big business these days and we reckon that a dedicated search engine could soon be a symbol of celebrity success. Remember, you read it here first. (Jan 01)
Scour http://www.scour.com It was a multimedia search engine, then it introduced Napster-style file sharing, and now it thinks of itself as "a broadband entertainment portal". Whatever it is, it's a good place to track down legal music, images and video files on the Web. (Jan 01)
Manik Music http://www.m-music.net An MP3 meta-searcher, of sorts. Trouble is, you can only query one search engine at a time. Trouble also is that the site's currently under redevelopment. However, as a gateway to some of the best MP3 search engines, it's just dandy. (Jan 01)
Lycos http://music.lycos.com Second appearance for Lycos in these lists, and deserved too. This engine searches for MP3 files stored on third-party servers, many of which are run by amateurs and most of which are busy. it helps to know a little about FTP (file transfer protocol) and to have a little patience. (Jan 01)
AltaVista http://www.altavista.com And hello again to AltaVista, this time to its image finding service. Pictures are displayed as thumbnails linked to the source page. A search on Kylie throws up a sock-chewing dog alongside pies of the singer - but it's much more fun than wading through oodles of disparate Web sites. (Jan 01)
Deja.com http://www.deja.com/usenet Now operated by google under development .... whatever that means. It was a dedicated and deservedly popular archiving site of old, Deja.com (formerly DejaNews) but still lets you search and recover old postings in newsgroups - although everything prior to May 1999 is currently AWOL. Use the Power search feature for best results. (May 01)
Forum One http://www.forumone.com In a similar vein, check out Forum One to sneak a peek at thousands of Web-based discussion groups. It's a large and diverse world out there - and much of it appears to be in here as well. (Jan 01)