Choosing a Search Engine
There are several things to think about when deciding on your primary search engine. The first thing, of course, is how well does the engine find what you are looking for. Another thing to look at, is how easy you find it to use.
It is worthwhile, however, to look at how well the search engine supports your efforts to limit unwanted exposure to negative content.
Things to look at:
- Is the search engine text based or graphical (pictures present a greater problem)?
- What else is on the site, especially on the page that greets you, and the page with results?
- What kind of ads are there?
- How much, and what kind of, filtering of results is available?
Most search engines let you tweak some settings. Search Engine Settings has some information on specific settings for different search engines. Try to set things as safely as possible. It's easier to open things out if you've been too restrictive, than to undo the results of accidentally hitting a really bad site.
Major Search Engines
| Search Engine |
Address |
Comments |
| Google |
www.google.com |
Totally text based, has some filter settings |
| Yahoo |
www.yahoo.com |
A fair amount of graphics. No filtering available. |
| Lycos |
www.lycos.com |
Very graphical, heavy emphasis on Entertainment, games etc. Cannot be customized or filtered |
| Alta Vista |
www.altavista.com |
Text based, has some filter settings, many links to Yahoo |
| Ask (AskJeeves) |
www.ask.com |
Text based front end, encyclopedia, basic Filter setting. Search results may have images in the right hand panel, along with other related content. |
| Ask for Kids |
www.askforkids.com |
Geared for children, more limited, but tries to avoid major issues |
| Dogpile |
www.dogpile.com/ |
Aggregates results from other search engines. Settings for filtering. Primarily text based. |
| MSN Live Search |
www.live.com |
Front end totally text based. Can add other items to the page. Settings for filtering |
Specialist Search Engines
| Search Engine |
Address |
Comments |
Highlights |
| Mahalo |
www.mahalo.com/Main_Page |
Almost totally graphic, with no way to change settings. Common search terms should return a Mahalo page with links evaluated by staff. Other search terms will give a page with possibly related terms, and the results of a Google search. |
They avoid the worst sites and sites that are questionable should have warnings. Also, some links have explanations that you can check before you link |
| Clusty |
http://clusty.com/ |
Aggregates results from other search engines. Primarily text based, can search for images, but not many images on the site. Groups results in various ways, and makes it easy to see where results are coming from. Fairly customizable. |
The clustering and categorizing makes it easier to find what you want without extraneous items. It also makes it easier to know where things are coming from. |
| Kartoo |
http://www.kartoo.com/en/kartoo.html |
Aggregates search results. Very easy to do basic searches, but hard to figure out how to do anything advanced. Has a parental filter, but little information on what it does. Grouping can be useful, but not always clear. |
The flash version shows a thumbnail of each site when you hover the mouse over it - which means you need to be careful of what you |
| KoolTorch |
http://www.kooltorch.com/ |
Aggregates search results. Can use graphical and text interfaces interchangeably. Grouping is useful. |
Not always very good search results. The text views show show thumbnails of all sites on the list, and the graphical view only when you hover. There is no way to prevent hovering over inappropriate sites, because you don't see names. |
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