If you do not know the URL that you are interested in, search engines can be used to locate it. Search engines are fast programs that when given keywords that relate to a search subject, try to best match those keywords with previously known descriptors of Web sites. A list of best site matches is returned to the user along with their URLs. Search engines update their lists of Web sites regularly. However, variations do exist in the way different engines search the Web, and in their indexing of the Web. Lawrence and Giles (1998) find that the HotBot and AltaVista engines offer the most coverage, although no single engine catalogued more than one third of the estimated "indexable" Web.
Single Engines
AltaVista altavista.digital.com
HotBot www.hotbot.com
A potentially more efficient way to search the Web is to combine the results of many engines in one "meta search" engine. Lawrence and Giles (1998) find that multiple coverage using 6 engines can yield 3.5 times as many documents on average as compared to a single engine.
Multiple Engines
MetaCrawler www.metacrawler.com
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Last updated: 6-Apr.-1999