Search Engines
There are essentially three major types of search sites - primary search engines, meta search engines, and focused search sites. Primary or general search sites such as
Google,
Yahoo, and
AlltheWeb have their own database and search software (engine) and suffice for the majority of online searches. They typically produce hundreds of thousands of results, but users generally focus on the first few pages. Many of these search engines also have a categories for more defined searches such as image searches, music searches, shopping, news, etc.
Meta Search engines such as
Dogpile and
ZapMeta typically forward your query to multiple primary search engines and present you with the results in an integrated fashion. Preferences for one over the other frequently depend on the way in which the results are organized and presented.
Finally, there are search engines that focus on a specific subject matter or area of concentration and typically limit the number of databases that they survey.
Scirus, a science search engine is a one example. In the future, we will be adding additional search sites to represent our various academic disciplines and professional interests.