What are they?
A search engine "reads" web pages and collects the information, storing it in a database. When you type words into the search box the search engine then tries to match your query with the information it has collected and return what it considers to be the most relevant web pages for that query.
What are they good for?
Search engines are good if you want to find specific information or products. If you aren't exactly sure of what you want, or you want to find a lot of websites that cover the same topic, use a directory instead.
When should you use one?
A search engine is a good choice when you know what you are trying to find and can keep your searches as specific as possible.
Are they all the same?
Each search engine has indexed a different amount of web pages (for more information have a look at this page on
Search Engine Watch) and each will return results in a different manner. You can try your search on several, one at a time, or you can use a Meta Search Engine such as FindSpot.
Meta Search engines
What are they?
A meta search engine does not collect information from web pages. Instead, a meta search engine queries other search engines and combines the results from the information they have stored in their individual databases.
What are they good for?
Meta search engines, such as
FindSpot, save you time and effort. By collecting results from the major search engines, a meta search engine helps you find the information you are looking for quicker than if you were to query each search engine individually.
Using a meta search engine is also a good idea if you aren't familiar with the major search engines' strengths and weaknesses. Using a meta search engine allows you to try out other engines that you might not have considered using. You never know, you may find that, just this once, big-G wasn't the winner.
When should you use one?
When you don't have a lot of time or you aren't sure which of the major search engines will have the results you're after.
Specialist search engines
What are they?
There are a number of specialist search engines that have been developed to catalogue various types of documents and web data. These include image search engines, music search engines and shopping search engines, amongst others. A comprehensive list of the different types of specialist search engines can be found at http://searchenginewatch.com/links/article.php/2156351.
There are also search engines specifically for various demographics such as the children's search engine www.yahooligans.com. And there are local search engines that only index web pages from/about a specific location such as the UK version of Google www.google.co.uk
What are they good for?
Specialist search engines can help to narrow your search considerably, saving you time.
When should you use one?
Specialist search engines are a good choice when you wish to find a specific file type, or want to severely restrict your search parameters by demographic, location or topic.
