Alta Vista

"ALTA VISTA: THE LARGEST WEB INDEX
Find pointers to your home page; find an old friend; find out what the other indexes missed. You have access to nearly 11 billion words found in nearly 22 million Web pages. A full-text index of over 13,000 news groups updated in real-time. We'll give you the articles too. Alpha 64-bit addressing lets us keep nearly 6 GB of the 33 GB word index in main memory, which makes lookups faster."

c|net recommends: "honorable mention. Another heavy-duty search engine worth checking out is Digital Equipment Corporation's Alta Vista, a powerhouse that provides incredible breadth and depth of coverage plus a highly sophisticated search language. Since MetaCrawler queries Alta Vista as well as other sites, though, we think the MetaCrawler engine is a more comprehensive place to start."

Internet Public Library says: "This recently-released search service is extremely fast, current, and comprehensive. It searches the entire full-text of Web pages and Usenet articles. Alta Vista is appropriate for beginning searchers, but it also has many advanced search features. Within a simple search, users can search for exact phrases, require or prohibit words, search within the title field of an HTML document, search for documents that contain a link to a particular URL, use wildcards, and employ case sensitivity. The advanced query allows for the use of Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT, NEAR) and lets users limit searches by date. Alta Vista was create to demonstrate Digital's hardware and software; expect to be able to license this technology soon. Creator: Digital Equipment Corporation"

One of my favorites...

HotBot [HO]

"HotBot is a search engine with first-rate speed and some unusual features, including the ability to limit searches to Web pages that contain specific technologies such as JavaScript or Shockwave." P.C. Computing, 10/96
Powered by and replacing INKTOMI.

excite [EX]

"The intelligent way to navigate the Net"
msn: "Excite gives you reviews of the sites they catalog. You can also use Excite to search Usenet discussion groups and classified ads. "

Internet Public Library says: "Excite offers an elegant, customizable user interface to search Web pages and the past two weeks of Usenet postings. Users can search in plain English or by keywords. If you like a search result, Excite also lets you say "give me more documents like this one." Additional features include a catalog of reviewed sites (links include one- to four-sentence descriptions of the site)and current news from Reuters. Webmasters can use Excite's search engine on their own web pages; Netscape uses Excite for Web Servers 1.0, which is available for free, on its site. Creator: Architext Software"

Galaxy (EINET Galaxy) (TradeWave Galaxy) [GA] "Galaxy is a guide to worldwide information and services and is provided as a public service by TradeWave Corporation. In addition, Galaxy guest editors bring you their wide-ranging information and insight."
Select by category: Business and Commerce, Community, Engineering and Technology, Government, Humanities, Law, Leisure and Recreation, Medicine, Reference and Interdisciplinary Information, Science, Social Sciences

Inktomi [IN]
"The Inktomi Search Engine is the first fast web indexer with a large database." -- REPLACED: "The core technology that powers this site has been used to build a new advanced commercial search engine, HotBot."

InfoSeek [IS]
NetScape's WWW Search Engine.

msn: "Infoseek catalogs individual web pages, rather than entire sites and displays an excerpt for each page that matches your search criteria. "

Internet Public Library says: "This fast, professional-quality search service retrieves up to 100 hits at no charge. Users can search Web pages, Usenet articles and Usenet FAQs by both keywords and phrases in plain English. Infoseek Guide also includes a selective directory of reviewed Internet sites that is both searchable and browsable. This directory includes cross-references, a searchable thesaurus (search "Topics"), and is well integrated with the database of unreviewed Web sites: it is possible to browse through the hierarchical directory, find a relevent reviewed Web site, then click on the "Similar Pages" link, which will find similar pages in the much larger database of unreviewed Web sites. A separate, fee-based service, InfoSeek Professional provides up to 200 hits on Web searches, and allows access to many other databases, including: wire services such as the Associated Press, PR Newswire and Business Wire; company profiles; and movie, book, and video reviews. Creator: Infoseek Corporation"

InfoSeek Ultra [UL]

Lycos [LY]
"Lycos: The only complete guide to the Internet, including the largest catalog of URLs, a directory of the most popular sites, critical reviews of the Web's top sites, real-time news links and on-target editorial content from some of the Web's most experienced, perceptive personalities.
How much of the Internet is included in Lycos? The current estimate is 10.75 million URLs. That means we have cataloged 91% of the web. The next largest catalog includes only about 13% of the web, based on its own published numbers.
What's the difference between Lycos and Yahoo? Yahoo and Lycos serve different purposes. Yahoo is a hierarchically organized directory of Web pages, for users who
     1.know what they are looking for
     2.know what Yahoo categories their desired information belongs in
     3.can spend the time to navigate the hierarchy to find what they are looking for and
     4.do not require an extensive web search or the ability to view abstracts.
Lycos is targeted at a user who needs
     1.fastest possible search with the widest possible retrieval of information on the Internet
     2.does not know in advance into what hierarchical category the desired information may fit, or
     3.does not want to restrict results to the categories guessed in advance
     4.wants to fine-tune the search by viewing summary information"

msn: "Lycos catalogs web pages rather than entire sites and provides you with an outline and abstract for each page that matches your search criteria."

Internet Public Library says: "Though many users have long considered Lycos to be the search service of choice, its competitors now claim that their services are larger, faster, and more accurate. Users can perform simple Boolean keyword searches (AND, OR), set the relevance feature looser or stronger in order to return a greater number or lesser number of documents, and customize how their results are displayed. Lycos also owns Point Communications, which offers a news service and a subject catalog of reviewed Internet sites; each review includes a one-sentence description and numeric ratings based on content, presentation, and total experience. Creators: Carnegie Mellon University; Lycos, Inc."

WebCrawler

Yahoo

c|net recommends: "quick orientation - If you're not quite sure what you're looking for, the best place to start is Yahoo. Its categorized list of sites is easy to browse and can provide a great deal of orientation to get you started in the right direction. Yahoo's search capabilities are merely average, but its simple operation is a definite plus."

msn: "Yahoo organizes sites by category. When Yahoo finds a site that matches your search criteria, it displays a summary of the site and a link to the site's category."

Internet Public Library says: "Yahoo is deservedly the most widely-used Internet catalog. In contrast to other search engines, which use computer programs which scour the Internet for Web pages, Yahoo catalogs sites manually, depending largely on user submissions. The front page is an alphabetical list of fourteen broad subject areas. Users can follow the hierarchical structure until they find the specific topic they are seeking (e.g., Society and Culture:Relationships:Online Marriage Proposals). Items listed in the catalog are largely Web pages, though some Usenet newsgroups are included. Some entries include a descriptive phrase, but most include only the link. Users can browse the hierarchical structure, use a search engine that searches the URLs, titles and comments within Yahoo, or use both features in tandem. Current news from Reuters is also available. Creator: Yahoo Corporation"