Weak and Feeble Search Engines

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I find that all of the search engines I use seem only to see a tiny bit of the Web. I often later find pages that some search never told me about that would have satisfied my search criteria. I've tried engines that claim to delve into the "invisible" parts of the Web, like BrightPlanet, but they suck too. Search engines I use regularly include Google, Excite, Yahoo, Lycos, Blowsearch, Meta Eureka, WindSeek, Alexa, Mamma, KillerInfo, HotBot, etc. I know that some of these are only meta engines. All of these seem to have databases that reflect only a very small fraction of the Web. What do you have to do to get a more thorough search?

P.S.: Of course, many engines, notably Teoma, bring back additional hits that violate my search criteria, and I don't want that either.

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Re: Weak and Feeble Search Engines

Brandon9000 wrote:

What do you have to do to get a more thorough search?

Have you seen the A2K toolbar?

It may or may not help, it will have any good engines but the problem might be existence and not your knowledge of them.

There are only two engines with good indexes, Google and Yahoo (with includes Alltheweb, Altavista etc).

The next big engine is the Teoma/ Ask Jeeves index.

After this, there is a big drop.

Wisenut is one you did not mention, it's the looksmart engine.

Gigablast is a one-man project that does ok, it has a small index.

The others are mostly just templated syndicated databases, heck I'll throw a search engine up here on A2K when I find a free 5 minutes.

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I've been meaning to take a look at the A2K tool bar. I have also tried the other engines you mentioned. I've also tried ProFusion, As Jeeves, etc., etc. I have enough experience to conclude that no engine I've ever seen is getting a very large fraction of the public Web. There may be one out there, but I haven't found it.

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Hmm, how do you calculate the fraction of the web?

For example, Alexa's index is massive, and constitutes pages that people have visted (the Alexa toolbar calls the spiders).

What you are describing might not be related to index size, but rather algo and queries.

Do the pages you later find just not show up high in the SERPs (search engine results pages) or are they not indexed at all?

It could be, that you find others later due to a different ranking system/query and not because of a small index.

IF you give examples I can have a look.

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I just often search for things and later find references which should have come up with my search terms, but which no engine showed me. Also, typically, if the best of the engines finds 3 references, most of the others find fewer or none.

I'll have to post an example the next time it happens.

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I have a present for you Brandon:

http://www.vnunet.com/features/1156870

While reading up on SEO news (I now have a full-time job with search entgine optimization and keeping up to date is part of my job) I ran across this just a few minutes after seeing your thread.

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Thank you, Craven. I'll take a look!

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Those net protocol confabs must be a riot Craven....

http://www.trekker.ru/encyclopedia/raceimg/klingons.jpg

"Your search engine is weak and without honor!"

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I use Dogpile. (www.dogpile.com). It seems to find some pretty obscure stuff I am looking for.

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Weak and Feeble Search Engines

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