Web Directories and Search Engines

Web Directories

Think of a Web directory as a subject catalogue--something like the subject catalogue in your local library. Yahoo attempts to organize Web by dividing it into topics and subtopics. Some examples include: Arts, Science, Health, Business, News, Entertainment. If you're looking for information on the Web that fits neatly into an obvious subject or category, go first to Yahoo (see link below) or one of the other Web directories.

Search Engines

Think of a Web search engine as an index that enables you to seek out specific words and phrases. With the search engine's help, you can locate individual appearances of such words in documents all over the Web.

In brief, here's a quick run-down of some well-known general topic search engines.

Yahoo is a actually a directory--a subject index.  It's an attempt to catalogue and organize the entire Web. Search on a subject or topic.  If you know exactly what subject you're searching for, and have a good sense of how to find your subject within a hierarchies of larger subjects, Yahoo is the best place to start.

If Yahoo can't give you a hit, it automatically sends your query to its partner Inktomi for a search through that index. The Yahoo site includes all sorts of other functionality, including excellent coverage of business-related sites. Yahoo also has chat, personal broadcast pages, and various regional information.

Excite is a concept-based search engine. This means it will try to figure out what you mean, instead of just searching on exactly what you say. This gives Excite a great deal of flexibility. Like Infoseek and Yahoo, Excite is now getting heavy into Web publishing. The Excite site includes an extensive Web directory, as well as the option of a "Personal Page," where you can define all the subjects that you are most interested in searching.

AltaVista is a powerful keyword search engine.  It allows you to search on phrases of more than one word if you put the phrase into quotations marks, i.e., "health care facilities" or "Bill Gates."  Alta Vista has lots of search-refining options.  It's big and fast, and very popular among dedicated web-surfers.  Like the other search engines, it is also branching out into catalogue-like channel areas, called "zones" for popular search subjects like health, news and travel.

Lycos is big, thorough and comprehensive.  Like Excite, Lycos is gradually becoming more like Yahoo, acting as a Web Directory as well as a search engine. Its link to RoadMap (generates maps based on addresses) is very cool!

Infoseek now uses a new search technology which is bigger, faster and more accurate than its previous engine. Like Yahoo, Lycos and Excite, Infoseek also offers a Web directory.

Webcrawler has been replaced by Excite as AOL's search engine, which raises questions about how long it'll stay around.

HotBot (formerly Inktomi) is fast and has a cool, counter-culture look. Hotbot performed very well in a recent test by PC Computing Magazine, beating out Excite, Infoseek and AltaVista to be rated fastest and most accurate product for business and professional purposes.

[Mon Feb 7 17:24:07 2000]