Searching the Web

Volume 31, Number 2, December 2003

Searching With the New HotBot

Holly Gunn

If you have ever wanted to run the same search on several engines and compare results, try the new HotBot. Instead of operating as a stand-alone search engine, the new HotBot provides an interface for searching four search engines. When it first appeared as a searching interface for other engines in December 2002, it accessed Fast, Inktomi, Google, and Teoma. It is currently a gateway to HotBot (Inktomi), Google, Lycos, and AskJeeves.

The new HotBot is not a meta-search engine. It allows separate searching of four engines, including Google. Type your query once, and run the query on four search engines in turn. As the search is performed on each of the four engines, results can be easily compared or combined.

Figure 1: Compare search engine results using HotBot

Search results will vary with each engine, both in the number of hits and their ranking. This is because each search engine database differs in size, frequency of indexing and the way each ranks results.

Prior to the arrival of the new HotBot, searchers who wanted to obtain search results from these four engines had to go to each engine to run the search. HotBot has brought Lycos, Inktomi, Google and Ask Jeeves together under one interface allowing quick comparison of results.

HotBot has its limitations. Because it provides access to four search engines that operate differently, searches must be tailored to fit each search engine. Each of these engines understands the use of + and – to combine or eliminate search terms. Each uses the default “and”, making it unnecessary to use the plus sign to combine terms. For example, the query cockroach reproduction adaptation locates web pages containing all three search terms. However, these engines handle field searching and file type searching differently and, in some cases, not at all. Each engine delivers results for the query “school libraries” site:edu , and the results come from educational institutions. However, when an additional search term is added as in the search, "school libraries" advocacy site:edu , AskJeeves retrieves irrelevant results that are not restricted to an .edu domain. File type searching is also a problem here. Only Google can search by file type; therefore, file type searches are pointless with the other engines. Inktomi, which powers the individual HotBot is case sensitive, therefore, a search for “POrtia White”, with a mistyped capital O, brings no results from HotBot, but yields hits from Google, Lycos, and AskJeeves, which aren’t case sensitive. Capital letters matter on the new HotBot.

Even with these limitations, secondary students will still find the new HotBot very useful for exhaustive searches or specific queries, such as a search for information about genes that influence addiction to gambling that have been identified in the Human Genome Project:
gene addiction gambling "human genome project".

The new HotBot is also a useful way to learn a lot about anyone with a web presence:
“Grace Hopper” biography or
"Yann Martel” biography.

It is a great search tool for the serious searcher, and teacher-librarians will find it a handy addition to their power searching toolkit.

Holly Gunn is the teacher-librarian at Sackville High School, Nova Scotia. She can be reached at hgunn@accesscable.net.