Oct 01, 2006 - 02:07:01 CDT
You're probably familiar with search engines such as Google (www.google.com), MSN (www.msn.com) and Yahoo (www.yahoo.com).You may have dabbled with Ask (www.ask.com), Alta Vista (www.altavista.com) and DogPile (www.dogpile.com).
But have you tried GigaBlast, kartOO, WiseNut or JoeAnt?
These are only a few of the other search engines available online that may be worth your time.
They aren't as big in name recognition or database size as Google, MSN and Yahoo. But they might just be what you need when searching for a particular site or specific information online:
GigaBlast
www.gigablast.com
Around since 2000, GigaBlast is similar in look and function to Google. In addition to regular Web pages, GigaBlast also indexes PDFs and specialized documents such as Microsoft Word, Powerpoint, PostScript, and Excel files. The search directory is built on the DMOZ/Open Directory database, an open-source, publicly edited Web site index that is the core database for many search engines. Search results at GigaBlast come up fast and useful, relevant links are usually found within the first handful of results.
KartOO Visual Meta Search Engine
kartoo.com
This one is a little hard to explain in print - you have to actually see it to understand it. Essentially, when you do a search, the results are grouped into a map format - sort of like looking at a map of a state and seeing the grouping of cities in that state. When your mouse pointer moves over a map listing, you get a small thumbnail image to the left of the listing's home page. KartOO queries several search engines when you do a search and picks the best of the results based on relevancy and other factors. Try it out and see what you think.
Thumbshots.net
www.thumbshots.net
Using the Open Directory Project search database, this site also adds thumbnail images of site home pages. In this way, you can quickly get an idea of what a site looks like before going there. You can visually weed out search results that, based on the thumbnail image, don't match what you want. Not all the search results have thumbnail images.
WiseNut
www.wisenut.com
In addition to the normal listings and links, WiseNut also generates category results based on your search, helping you refine your search or expand it into areas not initially intended through your original search. For example, search on the term "Alamo," and you'll get expected links to site related to the 1836 battle of the Alamo. But you'll also get categories of results in which there are more Web sites, such as "Alamo Chamber of Commerce," "San Antonio," "Alamo Square" and more.
JoeAnt
www.joeant.com
A community edited search engine with the goal of developing a quality search database, providing the best relevant sites to a search. In this respect, it's similar to the Open Directory Project. The database is smaller, but the results do tend to be more relevant to the search terms than the bigger, well known search engines. At the very least, you're likely to find what you're looking for in fewer results.
SingingFish
www.singingfish.com
This is an audio and video search engine. It scours the online world for links to audio and video files. You can define the A/V categories and the files types to search. Results include links to movie trailers, TV shows, songs, audio and video blogs and more. Take it for a test drive - you may like what you find.
(Keith Darnay is the webmaster and designer for bismarcktribune.com. His Web site, featuring this column going back to 1995, is at www.darnay.com.iec.)
Deb wrote on Oct 3, 2006 11:59 AM:
Bob wrote on Oct 1, 2006 9:16 PM:
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