SEOMetacrawlers and Metasearch Engines

Metacrawlers and Metasearch Engines

A list of major metacrawlers. Unlike search engines, metacrawlers don't crawl the web themselves to build listings. Instead, they allow searches to be sent to several search engines all at once.

Unlike search engines, metacrawlers don’t crawl the web themselves to build listings. Instead, they allow searches to be sent to several search engines all at once. The results are then blended together onto one page. Below are some of the major metacrawlers. Also see the Search Toolbars & Utilities page for metacrawler-style software that you can run from your desktop.

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Award WinnersOther ChoicesSpecialty Choices
All-In-One SearchMeta Search Articles

 

Award Winners

Dogpile
http://www.dogpile.com
Popular metasearch site owned by InfoSpace that sends a search to a customizable list of search engines, directories and specialty search sites, then displays results from each search engine individually. Winner of Best Meta Search Engine award from Search Engine Watch for 2003. (Review: Dogpile Sports a Fetching New Look, SearchDay, Sept. 2, 2003. Updates: Dogpile Enhances Search Results Search Engine Watch Blog, Nov. 10, 2004 – Dogpile Adds New Features Search Engine Watch Blog, Jan. 18, 2005 )

Vivisimo
http://vivisimo.com/
Enter a search term, and Vivismo will not only pull back matching responses from major search engines but also automatically organize the pages into categories. Slick and easy to use. Vivisimo won second place for Best Meta Search Engine in the 2003 Search Engine Watch awards and winner in 2002. (Review: Power Searching with Vivisimo, SearchDay, July 8, 2003)

Kartoo
http://www.kartoo.com
If you like the idea of seeing your web results visually, this meta search site shows the results with sites being interconnected by keywords. Honorable mention for Best Meta Search Engine award from Search Engine Watch in 2002.

Mamma
http://www.mamma.com
Founded in 1996, Mamma.com is one of the oldest meta search engines on the web. Mamma searches against a variety of major crawlers, directories and specialty search sites. The service also provides a paid listings option for advertisers, Mamma Classifieds. Mamma was an honorable mention for Best Meta Search Engine in the 2003 Search Engine Watch awards.

SurfWax
http://www.surfwax.com
Searches against major engines or provides those who open free accounts the ability to chose from a list of hundreds. Using the “SiteSnaps” feature, you can preview any page in the results and see where your terms appear in the document. Allows results or documents to be saved for future use. Honorable mention for Best Meta Search Engine award from Search Engine Watch in 2002.

 

Other Top Choices

Clusty
http://www.clusty.com
Clusty, from Vivisimo, presents both standard web search results and Vivisimo’s dynamic clusters that automatically categorize results. Clusty allows you to use Vivisimo’s dynamic clustering technology on ten different types of web content including material from the web, image, weblog and shopping databases. You can access each type of search by simply clicking a tab directly above the search box. (Review: Reducing Information Overkill, SearchDay, Sept. 30, 2004).

CurryGuide
http://web.curryguide.com/
Meta search engine for the US and several European countries, as well as in various subject areas. Has ability to save your results for easy rerunning at a future point.

Excite
http://www.excite.com
Formerly a crawled-based search engine, Excite was acquired by InfoSpace in 2002 and uses the same underlying technology as the other InfoSpace meta search engines, but maintains its own portal features.

Fazzle
http://www.fazzle.com/
Fazzle offers a highly flexible and customizable interface to a wide variety of information sources, ranging from general web results to specialized search resources in a number of subject specific categories. Formerly called SearchOnline.

Gimenei
http://gimenei.com/
Gimenei queries an undisclosed number of search engines and removes duplicates from results. Its most useful feature is an advanced search form that allows you to limit your search to a specific country.

IceRocket
http://www.icerocket.com/
Meta search engine with thumbnail displays. The Quick View display, similar to what WiseNut has long offered, is cool. The service queries WiseNut, Yahoo, Teoma and then somewhat repetitively also includes Yahoo-powered MSN, AltaVista and AllTheWeb. Disclosure of search sources within the actual search results is not done, sadly. Makes it hard to know exactly where the results are coming from.

Info.com
http://www.info.com
Info.com provides results from 14 search engines and pay-per-click directories, including Google, Ask Jeeves, Yahoo, Kanoodle, LookSmart, About, Overture and Open Directory. Also offers shopping, news, eBay, audio and video search, as well as a number of other interesting features. (Review: New Metasearch Engine: Info.com Search Engine Watch Blog, Oct. 18, 2004)

InfoGrid
http://www.infogrid.com
In a compact format, InfoGrid provides direct links to major search sites and topical web sites in different categories. Meta search and news searching is also offered.

Infonetware RealTerm Search
http://www.infonetware.com
This site is primarily designed to demonstrate classification technology from Infogistics. It’s a meta search engine, and it does topical classification of results, like Vivisimo. However, it is unique in that you can select several different topics, then “drill down” to see results from all of them, rather than being restricted to the results from only one topic.

<!–Ithaki
http://www.ithaki.net/Ithaki is probably the most “global” of all meta search engines, available in 14 languages and offering more than 35 different categories for limiting your search. In addition, Ithaki offers country specific search, querying only local search engines rather than the regional versions of the major search engines. –>

Ixquick
http://www.ixquick.com/
Meta search engine that ranks results based on the number of “top 10” rankings a site receives from the various search engines.

iZito
http://www.izito.com
iZito is a meta search engine with a clever feature. Click on any listing you are interested in using the P icon next to the listing title. That “parks” the listing into your to do list. Click on the P tab, and you can see all the pages you’ve culled. It’s an easy, handy way to make a custom result set. Also interesting is the ability to show listings in up to three columns across the screen, letting you see more results at once. (Review: iZito & Ujiko: Meta Search With Personality Search Engine Watch Blog, Sept. 29, 2004)

Jux2
http://www.jux2.com/
This search result comparison tool is cool. It allows you to search two major search engines at the same time, then see results that are found on both first, followed by results found on only one of them next. The small overlap visual tool displayed is great. I used to make examples like this to explain search engine overlap and why one search engine may not cover everything. Now I have an easy dynamic way to do this. The stats link at the bottom of the home page provides more visuals. (Update: Jux2 Adds New Features, Search Engine Watch Blog, Oct. 13, 2004)

Meceoo
http://www.meceoo.com/
Meta search with the ability to create an “exclusion list” to block pages from particular web sites being included. For example, want to meta search only against .org sites? French version also offered.

MetaCrawler
http://www.metacrawler.com
One of the oldest meta search services, MetaCrawler began in July 1995 at the University of Washington. MetaCrawler was purchased by InfoSpace, an online content provider, in Feb. 97.

MetaEureka
http://www.metaeureka.com
Search against several major search engines and paid listings services. Offers a nice option to see Alexa info about pages that are listed.

ProFusion
http://www.profusion.com
Brings back listings from several major search engines as well as “Invisible Web” resources. Formerly based at the University of Kansas, the site was purchased by search company Intelliseek in April 2000.

Query Server
http://www.queryserver.com/web.htm
Search against major web-wide search engines, as well as major news, health, money and government search services.

Turbo10
http://turbo10.com
Turbo10 is a metasearch Engine accesses both traditional web search engines and some invisible web databases, with a very speedy interface. (Review: Make way for the contender to Google’s crown, The Register, May 30, 2003)

Search.com
http://www.search.com
Search.com is a meta search engine operated by CNET. It offers both web-wide search and a wide variety of specialty search options. Search.com absorbed SavvySearch in October 1999. SavvySearch was one of the older metasearch services, around since May 1995 and formerly based at Colorado State University.

Ujiko
http://www.ujiko.com/
From the makers of visual meta search tool KartOO, this is a really slick service to try. Do your search, then scroll through the list. See something bad? Click the trash can icon, and the listing goes away. It’s a great way to prune your results — even better would have been if everything trashed brought up something new to look at. That would be a help for those who simply refuse to go past the first page of results.

See something you like? Click the heart icon and you can rate the listing. This information is memorized, to help ensure the sites you choose to better in future searches. Unlike KartOO, Ujiko uses results from only one search engine: Yahoo. It also offers many more features I haven’t even yet explored, but you can learn more about them here: http://www.ujiko.com/en_htm/. Gary Price also gives a rundown here: http://www.resourceshelf.com/archives/2004_04_01_resourceshelf_archive.html. The only downside? Flash is required.

WebCrawler
http://www.webcrawler.com
Formerly a crawled-based search engine owned by Excite, Webcrawler was acquired by InfoSpace in 2002 and uses the same underlying technology as the other InfoSpace meta search engines, but offers a fast and clean, ad-free interface.

ZapMeta
http://www.zapmeta.com
Provides a variety of ways to sort the results retrieved, plus provides interesting visualization tools and other features. (Review: ZapMeta: A Promising New Meta Search Engine, Feb. 26, 2004)

 

Specialty Choices

The metacrawlers listed below let you meta search in specific subject areas.

Family Friendly Search
http://www.familyfriendlysearch.com
Meta search service that queries major kid-friendly search engines.

GoFish
http://www.gofish.com
Meta search service for licensed and commercially available digital media downloads including music, movies, music videos, ringtones, mobile games and PC games, searching over 12 million media files. (Review: GoFish Multimedia Shopping Search: IceRocket Deal & Closer Look, Search Engine Watch Blog, Feb. 4, 2005)

Searchy.co.uk
http://www.searchy.co.uk
Searches 15 U.K. engines. The advanced search form allows you to change the order that results are presented, either by speed or manually to suit your own preferences.

Watson for the Macintosh
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/internet_utilities/watson.html
Watson is a “Swiss Army Knife” with nineteen interfaces to web content and services — an improvement on Sherlock, with nearly twice as many tools, including Google Searching.

 

All-In-One Search Pages

Unlike metacrawlers, all-in-one search pages do not send your query to many search engines at the same time. Instead, they generally list a wide-variety of search engines and allow you to search at your choice without having to go directly to that search engine.

Google Versus Yahoo Tool
http://www.langreiter.com/exec/yahoo-vs-google.html

See visually how results compare on Google versus Yahoo.

One Page MultiSearch Engines
http://www.bjorgul.com/
Clean interface lets you query major services from one page.

Proteus
http://www.thrall.org/proteus.html
Lets you easily send your search to one of several search engines. It also has links to search engine help pages.

Queryster
http://www.queryster.com
Queryster lets you quickly get results from one of several major search engines, simply by clicking an icon. (Review: A Fun Multi-Search Tool, Feb. 23, 2004)

YurNet
http://www.yurnet.com
Select your search engines from the many choices offered. The results will all appear within one page, side-by-side. It’s a great way to compare results, though a bit hard to read with more than two search engines selected.

 

Meta Search Articles

For other articles and older reviews, also see the Search Engine Reviews page.

Meta Search Engines are Back
SearchDay, Dec. 4, 2003
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3109441
It’s been a busy year for the major meta search engines, with a number of notable developments that have restored their usefulness as worthy search tools.

Meta Search Engines: An Introduction
SearchDay, September 16, 2002
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/2160771
This week, SearchDay focuses on the world of meta search engines, looking under the hood at how they work and profiling the major players and their offerings

The Big Four Meta Search Engines
SearchDay, September 17, 2002
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/2160781
Though there are dozens of useful meta search engines, InfoSpace is the industry gorilla, operating the four arguably best known and most heavily used properties.

The Best and Most Popular Meta Search Engines
SearchDay, September 18, 2002
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/2160791
Meta search engines look pretty much the same up front, but their approach to presenting results varies widely. Here’s a list of Search Engine Watch’s pick of the best and most popular metas for searching the web.

A Meta Search Engine Roundup
SearchDay, September 19, 2002
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/2160801
Completing our roundup of meta search engines, this list focuses on services that are competent and in many cases worthy of a look, but don’t meet all of our evaluation criteria.

Meta Search Or Meta Ads?
The Search Engine Report, June 4, 2001
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/sereport/article.php/2163821
A review of meta search services by Search Engine Watch shows that some are providing results where more than half of their listings are paid links. A guide to what’s paid, what’s not and how to get the most from your meta search service.

Looking for more articles and reviews of meta search engines? See the Meta Search category of the Search Topics section of Search Engine Watch available to Search Engine Watch members.

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