The Internet

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Tutorials

Which Search Engine to Use?

Do you want...

to browse a subject area? USE Yahoo, Magellan (or for top sites, NetGuideLive or Pointcom Top 5%)

to search Usenet? USE Yahoo, Magellan, Webcrawler, OpenText, AltaVista, InfoSeek or HotBot (or best of all, DejaNews)

to include older gopher files in your search? USE Magellan, Webcrawler, OpenText or InfoSeek

to search as much as the Web as possible? USE AltaVista or InfoSeek Ultraseek

to search every word on a site or in a document? USE AltaVista, OpenText, InfoSeek UltraSeek or HotBot

to locate an obscure or hard-to-find document? USE AltaVista, InfoSeek UltraSeek

to locate a fairly popular site or easy-to-find document? USE Webcrawler, Yahoo, or Magellan

to retrieve a large number of results? USE AltaVista or InfoSeek Ultra or a metasearch engine such as SavvySearch or MetaCrawler

to retrieve few but relevant results? USE Webcrawler or OpenText

to search only titles, URLs or keywords? USE Webcrawler, Yahoo OR AltaVista,

to specify in what part of a site your search terms will occur (including titles, URLs and summaries)? USE AltaVista, InfoSeek, Ultraseek, or OpenText

to search reviewed and evaluated sites? USE Magellan, Pointcom's Top 5% or NetGuide Live's Best of the Web