Yahoo is a primarily a web directory, i.e. 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 search engine HotBot (formerly Inktomi), which is
fast and has a cool, counter-culture look. Hotbot performed very well
in a recent test by PC Computing Magazine, and was rated fastest and
most accurate product for business and professional purposes.
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 also includes an extensive Web directory.
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Webcrawler has been replaced by Excite as AOL's search engine, which raises questions about how long it'll stay around.
[Fri Feb 11 14:30:25 2000]