HIT: Favorite Search Engines

[Annette Felix <felix@AZSTARNET.COM>]

Well the votes have been counted and it looks like, true to form, there
is no clear cut winner.  We are a diverse group that has different
needs, preferences, and choices, therefore we have come up with a list
that represents this (I think anyway!).
http://www.metacrawler.com   - 7
http://www.dogpile.com    - 6
http://www.altavista.com   -5
http://www.inference.com/ifind/   - 5
http://www.yahoo.com    -5
http://www.northernlight.com/   - 4
http://www.mamma.com    -2
http://www.askjeeves.com      - 2
http://www.hotbot.com/index.html   -2
http://www.yahooligans.com - 1 (for Elementary level)
http://www.dejanews.com/ - 1 (for searching discussion groups - usnet)
Encyclopedia Britannica Internet Guide (http://www.ebig.com) - 1

Suggestions for comparing sites:
http://www.nueva.pvt.k12.ca.us/~debbie/library/research/adviceengine.html

Dale's sites have a lot of useful info:
http://www.wcsu.k12.vt.us/~wardsboro/mpi.htm#Search
http://www.wcsu.k12.vt.us/~wardsboro/catalogs.htm

Comments given:
     3 folks stated that students automatically go to Yahoo, altho not
what they recommend
     Margaret reminds "that not all search engines do the same things.
...use the help pages with each engine to find out how to best construct
...searches. ...become familiar with 3 different ones to try and get the
best list of sites."
    Judy, Jamie, and Toni253 say dogpile "is also a great place to use
to show the differences in results from the same search, using different
search engines."
   Carl talked with a person who does beta testing for Microsoft and
found out "Altavista is the supplier of wesite names for most of the
other search engines, including Yahoo."
    Ken, a researcher/writer, uses http://www.altavista.digital.com
(this is the advanced searching screen of Altavista).
BTW, this screen does a pretty good job of translating into a variety of
languages your own words or webpages.

Thanks to everyone that sent suggestions.  I think the best advice is to
try out searches on different engines.  It has been my experience (as
I'm sure most of yours) that different search engines do better on
certain search topics that others and I'm not sure I have seen a clear
cut pattern.  I try to encourage my students to try a couple of
different ones, including one of the multi-engines.
Annette Felix

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