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The search engines below are all excellent choices to start with when searching for information.

Google
http://www.google.com

Voted four times Most Outstanding Search Engine by Search Engine Watch readers, Google has a well-deserved reputation as the top choice for those searching the web. The crawler-based service provides both comprehensive coverage of the web along with great relevancy. It's highly recommended as a first stop in your hunt for whatever you are looking for.

Google provides the option to find more than web pages, however. Using on the top of the search box on the Google home page, you can easily seek out images from across the web, discussions that are taking place on Usenet newsgroups, locate news information or perform product searching. Using the More link provides access to human-compiled information from the Open Directory (see below), catalog searching and other services.

Google is also known for the wide range of features it offers, such as cached links that let you "resurrect" dead pages or see older versions of recently changed ones. It offers excellent spell checking, easy access to dictionary definitions, integration of stock quotes, street maps, telephone numbers and more. See Google's help page for an entire rundown on some of these features. The Google Toolbar has also won a popular following for the easy access it provides to Google and its features directly from the Internet Explorer browser.

In addition to Google's unpaid editorial results, the company also operates its own advertising programs. The cost-per-click AdWords program places ads on Google as well as some of Google's partners. Similarly, Google is also a provider of unpaid editorial results to some other search engines. For a list of major partnerships, see the Search Providers Chart.

Google was originally a Stanford University project by students Larry Page and Sergey Brin called BackRub. By 1998, the name had been changed to Google, and the project jumped off campus and became the private company Google. It remains privately held today.

Getting Listed: Read the Submitting To Google section of Search Engine Watch's Essentials Of Search Engine Submission guide for more about being included in Google's editorial results and the Google AdWords section for more about its paid listings programs.

Search Engine Watch members have access to the How Google Works section of the web site, which provides in-depth coverage of the editorial and paid listings processes at Google. Learn more about becoming a member on the membership information page.

Yahoo
http://www.yahoo.com

Launched in 1994, Yahoo is the web's oldest "directory," a place where human editors organize web sites into categories. However, in October 2002, Yahoo made a giant shift to crawler-based listings for its main results. These came from Google until February 2004. Now, Yahoo uses its own search technology. Learn more in this recent review from our SearchDay newsletter, which also provides some updated submission details.

In addition to excellent search results, you can use tabs above the search box on the Yahoo home page to seek images, Yellow Page listings or use Yahoo's excellent shopping search engine. Or visit the Yahoo Search home page, where even more specialized search options are offered.

The Yahoo Directory still survives. You'll notice "category" links below some of the sites lists in response to a keyword search. When offered, these will take you to a list of web sites that have been reviewed and approved by a human editor.

It's also possible to do a pure search of just the human-compiled Yahoo Directory, which is how the old or "classic" Yahoo used to work. To do this, search from the Yahoo Directory home page, as opposed to the regular Yahoo.com home page. Then you'll get both directory category links ("Related Directory Categories") and "Directory Results," which are the top web site matches drawn from all categories of the Yahoo Directory.

Sites pay a fee to be included in the Yahoo Directory's commercial listings, though they must meet editor approval before being accepted. Non-commercial content is accepted for free. Yahoo's content acquisition program also offers paid inclusion, where sites can also pay to be included in Yahoo's crawler-based results. This doesn't guarantee ranking, Yahoo promises. The CAP program also bring in content from non-profit organizations for free.

Like Google, Yahoo sells paid placement advertising links that appear on its own site and which are distributed to others. These are sold through Overture. Yahoo purchased Overture in a company Yahoo purchased in October 2003.

Overture was formerly called GoTo until late 2001. More about it can be found on the Paid Listings Search Engines page. Overture purchased AllTheWeb (see below) in March 2003 and acquired AltaVista (see below) in April 2003. Now Yahoo owns these, gained as from its purchase of Overture.

Technology AltaVista and AllTheWeb was combined with that of Inktomi, a crawler-based search engine that grew out UC Berkeley and then launched as its own company in 1996, to make the current Yahoo crawler. Yahoo purchased Inktomi in March 2003.

Getting Listed: Read the Submitting To Yahoo section of Search Engine Watch's Essentials Of Search Engine Submission guide for more information on appearing in Yahoo's own editorial results. Read the Overture section of Search Engine Watch's Essentials Of Search Engine Submission guide for more information on Overture's paid listings program.

Search Engine Watch members have access to the How Yahoo Works section of the web site, which provides in-depth coverage of how Yahoo gathers listings. The How Overture Works page, which provides in-depth coverage of how cost-per-click ads can be placed with Overture.

Ask Jeeves
http://www.askjeeves.com

Ask Jeeves initially gained fame in 1998 and 1999 as being the "natural language" search engine that let you search by asking questions and responded with what seemed to be the right answer to everything.

In reality, technology wasn't what made Ask Jeeves perform so well. Behind the scenes, the company at one point had about 100 editors who monitored search logs. They then went out onto the web and located what seemed to be the best sites to match the most popular queries.

Today, Ask Jeeves instead depends on crawler-based technology to provide results to its users. These results come from the Teoma search engine that it owns, which is described below.

Ask Jeeves is doing innovative things with invisible tabs and with what it calls Smart Search. We think the future of search will be this much smarter approach to delivering up more than just web pages. It makes Ask Jeeves a well-worth a visit by anyone looking for information.

Ask Jeeves also owns now closed Direct Hit service.

Getting Listed: For the main editorial listings at Ask Jeeves, you need to be listed with Teoma, which is described below. Paid listings come from Google AdWords, described above.

Search Engine Watch members have access to the How Ask Jeeves Works page, which provides in-depth coverage of how Ask Jeeves integrates listings from Teoma and its own editors.

by: Search Engine Watch

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