how to guide to choosing search

Which Search Engine delivers the best search results? WebSiteFaves.com thinks that jury is still out, but we do know which Search Engine is being used the most at home, at school and at work, and the answer is clearly Google.

Some estimates put Google’s share at more than 60% with Yahoo! at less than 20%, Bing from Microsoft at around 10% and AOL & Ask (the old Ask Jeeves which is trying to make a comeback) each at around 5, or so. AOL, of course, is now powered by Google, so that just continues to make Google’s lead grow.

Ask Google

Bing Yahoo!

Search Engines - Meta-Search

In addition to these major search engines, there are a number of "Meta-Search" engines. These Meta-Search engines do not search the web per se, or contain large data bases or indexes, but simply submit your search query to a number of true search engines (such as the four listed above) and return the results from all the engines they have queried.

These Meta Search engines include old-timers such as Dogpile and AltaVista (which also features Babel Fish translation) as well as newcomers such as Yippy which creates "Clouds" of results around the various meta keywords and, our absolute favorite, SurfWax which can mix general search with educational, U.S. Government tools and news sources, and many additional features for probing within a site for the really serious web researcher.

AltaVista Dogpile

SurfWax Yippy

If you're really that serious about searching, the best solution is to add multiple general search engine and Meta Search providers to your search box as we do here at DeBowsReview.com.

For a detailed look at Search Engines, and their history, visit the world's greatest encyclopedia, Wikipedia.