Searching the Web
Volume 31, Number 3, February 2004
Searching With Meta-Search Engines
Holly Gunn
Meta-search engines do not search the Web themselves.
Instead, they search databases created by search engines
that spider the Web, and present the combined results.
The
rationale for using meta-search engines is to save
time by searching many engines simultaneously, eliminating
the need to run searches on several search engines
individually.
This idea seems to be better in theory than in practice,
however, since carefully constructed searches of the
major search engines often return more relevant results
than those delivered by many meta-search engines.
Results
from many meta-search engines can be disappointing
for a number of reasons:
- Many meta-search engines don’t
send search queries to Google, the most comprehensive
search engine
on the
Web.
- Many meta-search engines send the search
queries to paid-placement search engines which places
extensive commercial content in the search results.
- Most
meta-search engines ignore power search commands:
field searches, site searches and
file type searches.
This limits the relevance of their search
results.
- Many are not capable of using Boolean
logic.
Although
there are many meta-search engines (see Yahoo! Directory’s
All-in-One Search Pages for an extensive list), Joe
Barker of the from University of California
Berkeley Library recommends few meta-search engines
in his 2003 article on meta-search engines. Barker
singles
out Vivisimo and
IXQuick as better than average, and suggests Surfwax
and
Copernic for deep digging. He dismisses most of the
other meta-search
engines, saying they are “not as effective
as using a few good search engines” (Barker,
2003, para.8). Vivisimo and IXQuick have both won
awards from Search
Engine Watch. Vivisimo
is very useful for students and teachers by providing
a
clustered overview of a subject. It clearly identifies
the search engine source for its results and allows
advanced searching. IXQuick rates the hits according
to relevance
to the search query, and also indicates the source
of its results. Copernic is
another Search Engine Watch award-winner. The basic
version
of
this searching software is free, while Copernic Personal
and Professional require payment for use. Similarly,
Surfwax,
which received honorable mention from Search Engine
Watch for Best Meta-Search
Engine in 2002, has a free personal version allowing
limited access; Silver and Gold users pay for use.
A few
of the newer meta-search engines have incorporated
some useful features. EZ2Find,
has an Advanced Search option which allows searching
by
specialized category. Fazzle has a
preview feature
in the browser; the ability to sort results by popularity,
title, URL or description; built-in e-mail capability;
and the capability of Boolean searching.
Kartoo is
a meta-search that produces results in a visual Web.
Unfortunately, many of its results
come from paid placements. So, although the visual
representation of results and their accompanying summaries
have great
appeal for the visual learner, the relevance of the
results can be disappointing because of their commercial
content.
Despite the downside of most meta-search engines,
there are times when the top ones are very useful.
The search
features of EZ2find and Fazzle make them very appealing,
and Vivisimo, with its clustering capabilities, is
still a first stop on the Web when looking for an
overview and sub-topics of a subject. References and Further Reading
Barker, J. (2003). Meta-search engines. University
of California Berkeley Library. Retrieved
September 27,
2003.
Sherman, C. (2003). Metacrawlers and metasearch engines.
Search Engine Watch.com. Retrieved
September 27, 2003.
Holly Gunn is the teacher-librarian at Sackville
High School, Nova Scotia. She can be reached at hgunn@accesscable.net.
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