The Major Search Engines

Summary of the Major Search Engines
As the Internet started to grow and became an integral part of day-to-day work, it became almost impossible for a user to fetch the exact or relevant information from such a huge web. This is the main reason why Search Engines were developed. Search engines became so popular that now more than 80% of web-site visitors come from them.

So which are the major Search Engines?

Google: Right from the establishment in 1999, until today, Google is still the most popular search engine on the internet. Since its beta release, it has had phrase searching for NOT, it did not add an OR operation until Oct. 2000. In Dec. 2000, it added title searching. In June 2000 it announced a database of over 560 million pages, which grew to 4 billion by February 2004. Its biggest strength is its size and scope. Google includes PDF, DOC, PS, Image and many other file type indexing. It also has additional databases in the form of Google Groups, News, Directory, etc.

Yahoo!: Yahoo! is one of the best known and most popular internet portals. Originally just a subject directory, now Yahoo! is a search engine, directory and portal. It includes cached copies of pages and also includes links to the Yahoo! directory. It supports full Boolean searching, but it lacks in providing some advanced search features such as truncation. It indexes the first 500KB of a web page and link searches require inclusion of http://

Bing: Bing Search by Microsoft is the search engine for the MSN portal site. For years it had used databases from other vendors including Inktomi, LookSmart, and Direct Hit. As of February 1, 2005, it began using its own, unique database including separate News, Images, and Local databases along with links into Microsoft’s Encarta Encyclopedia content. Its large and unique database, query building Search Builder and Boolean searching, cached copies of web pages including date cached and automatic local search options are its strengths. However,  limited  advanced  features,  inconsistent  availability  of  truncation  are  its weaknesses.

Ask: Debuting in spring 2001 and re-launching in April 2002, this new search engine has built its own database and offers some unique search features. It lacks full Boolean and other advanced search features, but it has more recently expanded and improved its search capabilities and added an advanced search. While Teoma results can show up in three separate sections, there is only the one single database of indexed Web pages. It may also include paid ad results (from Google’s AdWords database) under the heading of ‘Sponsored Links.’ No additional databases or portal features are directly available. AskJeeves switched to Teoma instead of Direct Hit in January 2002 for the search engine results after its question and answer matches. Identifying Metasites and Refine feature to focus on web communities are the strengths while a smaller database, no direct URL submissions and no cached copies of pages are its weaknesses.