Slashdot Mirror

Ikr? Same with HotBot, and InfoSpace and Lycos and Metacrawler and WebCrawler and Dogpile and Looksmart and so on...

I get these confused ALL THE TIME with Google!

Ah, I remember that. Metacrawler was the same concept.

I remember putting a lot of thought into whether Dogpile or Metacrawler would win out. Then Google appeared, and made the question moot.
Dogpile and Metacrawrler both incorporated Google, but the non-google results just decreased the usability.

In the early 1960s, the Biostatistics Unit of the School of Medicine at UCLA developed BiMed (or was it BiMd). This was a package of statistical analysis applications that ran on a main-frame computer before the advent of desktop computers, the Internet, or client-server systems. It was widely requested by medical and non-medical researchers, not only at universities but also at various corporations. BiMed went through several versions. No, I don't know whether BiMed still exists today.

MetaCrawler was originally developed in 1994 at the University of Washington by then graduate student Erik Selberg and Associate Professor Oren Etzioni. This is a meta-search engine that sends queries to other seach engines. If you want to search Google, Yahoo!, Bing, and a few others all at once, your query at MetaCrawler uses all those. As with other software developed in universities, MetaCrawler is now owned by a for-profit company. Nevertheless, I still use it. It's at http://www.metacrawler.com./

Well, there is MetaCrawler.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MetaCrawler
http://www.metacrawler.com/

Seriously folks, Google's search results are a product of Google and are subject to their whim. They may provide mostly fair results, but does anyone seriously think that any search engine has perfectly fair results?

I don't see why they are obligated at all to treat all websites equally.
Infact, I can't think of a single search engine that does treat all sites equal due to "adwords" and other such paid for advertising. Oh, I know, they're "labeled" as ads; Pffft, my grandma doesn't know that; She can't be convinced that the sponsored links aren't the top (and therefore "best") results. Strangely enough, she actually gets what she was searching for.

Screw "fair" results. Pure algorithmic results can and have been abused by link-farms. Google and other search engines manually de-rank link farms. I have personally reported such link-bait and watched them disappear from results the next day. BLAM, there goes your "pure algorithmic results".

Even if Google is being fair in this instance, its best to search multiple engines.

If only there was some service that allowed me to search multiple engines at once.

You would think that someone would create a Firefox plugin that does this...

Seriously, this is a non issue.

Metacrawler.com was the original metasearch, and it's still my number one choice. I can't believe it didn't make the list. You can even (through a configurable cookie) choose which search engines you do and do not want to use, so if you dislike Google, for example, you don't have to use it.

try metacrawler: http://www.metacrawler.com/

it's called http://www.metacrawler.com/ and I figure it will remain that way for many many moons ... Cheers Richard

This is a simple example of metasearch.

For a more complete implementation (which eliminates combined results, etc), you might want to try metacrawler. Dogpile is better known but is exactly the same under the hood, so the one you use probably depends on your UI choice.

I imagine there are a bunch of other metasearch implementations out by now but I happened to do a bit of work on those two back in the day, so I know a little more about them.

Try a metasearch and let the server figure it out.

Keep in mind that Yahoo!'s search is fundamentally different than Google's. Google spiders the web (much like WebCrawler and MetaCrawler did, and still do). Yahoo!'s search has been based on user-submissions and moderators checking each site and adding it into the directories.

This is probably why, as you noted, Yahoo!'s results are more relevant.

Hey, what do you know, it was a search engine, and it was a blatant ripoff.

It doesn't even have some of the fun features of the others.

I honestly don't remember the first time I saw MetaCrawler (but it used to be much simpler back then!) so I don't know if it predates Google. WebCrawler's idea however is not new, AFAIK.

Take MetaCrawler and DogPile for instance -- they aren't on his list.

Both DogPile and MetaCrawler are owned by InfoSpace. There may be more than five companies, but not as much diversity as one would think.

• WebCrawler
• MetaCrawler
• AltaVista
• InfoSeek

Happy Birthday, Google!

Anyone here know what a stock photo is? I suggest doing a search on the Web if you don't. Oh, and I prefer Metacrawler to Google, you insensitive clod! But, that's just IMHO. Wow, I'm getting a lot of Slashdot randomness here. Now all I have to do is talk about Soviet Russia, ??? -> Profit and of course, that .sig I don't have. Satisfied, CowboyNeal?

religion changes...
And if now we use the "GooglePower" to find some information remember when we used altavista or metacrawler.
There is also more and more fake hits on google.
Sometimes you have to browse 2-3 pages of results before finding a real result.
Because everybody is using the power of google to raise up is site.
Because a site that's not in google will never be seen...
But the google bot are really powerfull, thay can even read in any file format. They will propably find once: "What is the Matrix..."

I saw this on Google News and went to check it out, but got annoyed quickly when I couldn't search all four engines at once with collated results. It can't be that hard to do.

That would be MetaCrawler. It checks many different search engines are returns the results from all of them combined.

Och. . . Meta search engines. . . That's a memory. . . I almost forgot what my favorite search engine use to be before i discovered google. I was always partial to MetaCrawler which, BTW, also seams to have gotten an interface facelift also. (damn, havent been there in years)

whats the 2nd best search engine?

try altavista and metacrawler. They're both reasonable.

It's simply amazing that this got them in trouble.

Google Search Engine

Yahoo has blocked the search of DeCSS

Lycos

Altavista

MetaCrawler

Go. Now Overture. Owned By Disney/ABC

CNet (Search.com)

Add Any I left out :-)

I'm astonished. I use google for generic searches, but any time I need a specific answer, google is the one I definitely would not use, as it never returns the link I want in the first 3 pages.

So I have a list of twenty-something search engines I use for specific purposes as they all have their sweet spot.

Here are my top 7:

ask.com
altavista.com
findlaw.com
lycos.com
metacrawler.com
alexa.com
alltheweb.com
etc etc

It is well understood that the more times you see an image, the more likely you are to purchase its related product when you are wandering down the store aisles, wondering what to purchase. You've had the moment when you're standing in front of seven different brands of raisin brans, and you opt for one or another, little calculating that the one you purchased was simply imprinted upon your brain more times in recent advertising.

Google strides like a valiant and noble knight, a Don Quixote on a mission from heaven, to clear the mindscape of all those lurching, fragmented thoughts: "buy me!" "buy me!" "buy me!"

Like a gift from another universe, where things are cleaner, and evaluated by merit rather than popularity, Google presents an elaborate algorithm for sorting websites into fields of clarity. So insightful is their methodology, other larger search engines have bowed to this upstart. Even the mighty Yahoo, the first big engine on the 'net, has Google under the hood. So do a dozen other search engines, and thousands of sites who have turned their proprietary search functions over to the agile Google churner. AltaVista, Lycos, metacrawlers, and a few other great ones keep the American principle of competition solid, yet here we behold the miracle of Google.

We programmers watched Google come from behind, for we needed a relevance-based engine long before anyone else did: we had to have it so we could put it in the hands of others who needed our services; we were developers: we knew the information was out there, and were willing to spend hours tracking it down. Somewhere along the way, we'd stumble across this small search engine called Google, and discover that it turned up amazingly relevant searches, time and time again. No advertising. Quick.

So we bookmarked it, then we earmarked it, and finally we began to deliver the most precious kind of advertising which can be earned: we told our friends about it. And we delighted in the lack of advertising. Truly a geek's machine; sleek and relevant.

We watched the Internet bubble come crashing down around its own self- exuberance; we all know at least one programmer humbled by the rapid withdrawal of venture capital.

And so we watch Google carefully now, knowing that it is still bearing fruit for its venture capital investors, yet also knowing that our economy is continuing to draw inward, and as carefully as we form our sentences regarding the future of our welfare... we hold our breath when we visit Google each day for its wealth of free, friendly, and advertising-free three billion interrelated facets of information.

We watched Google handle the September 11 tragedy, worried that it might spark them into becoming a news portal, since their cache ability made them compete with sites like CNN which were swamped with 50,000 hits per second... and we saw Google come out cleanly, building on the crisis in a noble, not-capitalizing-on-the-crisis, manner. Now you can visit Google and find current information; it's a portal, yet ever so quietly, since there are no advertisements. Portals have become synonymous with a barrage of advertising, so what do we call this gallant creature who will not stoop to capitalism?

It's just a humble search engine: A search engine which points the way into a future with a clean mindscape. We may not all make it there; spammers prove that they'll come into such a future kicking and screaming for attention, and since we know that we all have to arrive together or else we none of us can arrive, we tolerate them.

Yes, we hold our breath each time we visit Google, lest they make that sad plunge into our noisy world instead of rising above it. And we are continually surprised by the improvements which they are making. These are not trivial improvements, simple cosmetic additions; one by one they have expanded our notion of how powerful a search engine can be, how it can nimbly reach into the deepest crevices of the Internet and produce a slew of relevant information on obscure topics. Search within groups. Search for images. Search only for images which are wallpaper sized from sites in Europe and are black and white.

The essence of the Internet, the information revolution, has somehow been bestowed upon the novel minds working for Google. We look at their job offerings, and yearn for the day when we can deserve such benevolence as to work for Google. Certainly only the best of the best work for Google (or id). They play hockey in their parking lots, and eat catered food every day. Ah, there we begin holding our breath. We like to have fun at work, but too much fun is a sign of venture capital.

How do they do it, how do they keep going, and going, and going without losing integrity by selling ads or trying to do too much? Google quietly inspires us to consider a world without advertising. Oh, they take advertising alright, yet look at it: it's extremely targeted, intended to be relevant to the searcher. With a thick black line separating advertising and content. No advertiser images. None of this irrelevant barrage. Looking for a new ISP? Here's twenty links, and over here in the corner, ten folks who've paid us money to be listed when you search for ISPs. Google drew a distinct line between the advertiser content and their own content. And they steadfastly looked toward our needs when they tolerated no images. Text- based. Get the information into the hand of the gentleman while he needs it, and trust that he will come back later with a thank-you note in hand.

Well, here is one thank you note. I hold my breath each time I visit Google, and I use it extensively, and have for years. I was Googling when Google wasn't yet cool, and I'm delighted to see it surviving. I hope they remain solid in their condition of accepting no image-based advertisements, and pray they will continue to inspire us with clarity on the concept of what it means to serve.

The cache concept, now firmly entrenched in the way we conceive of the Internet, is perhaps the greatest aspect of the information revolution: You once published a site, but now it is defunct. Or your site is presently being slashdotted or DOS'd. No problem, visit the Google cache for the site, and there's your info, as clear and sometimes quicker than the original version. The folks at archive.org have taken this idea and run with it, yet I must admit the first time I realized how profoundly differently we were going to be processing information in the future came when I understood what Google was doing with their cache. I prayed then, and the prayer was answered, that the cache would not be shut down because of re-publishing rights issues. Now Google has enough momentum that it would take an act of Congress to shut off their caching.

Take a look at Google. Unlike most companies with bold pretty mission statements hiding inner corruption, Google somehow matches their ten operating principles with immediate proof. They do it right; they work hard for their money.

Metacrawler was my prior favorite as well. However, metacrawler.com still exists and it's not quite as bad as goto.net.

http://www.metacrawler.com

a) become a portal
b) shove ads everywhere (I left metacrawler as soon as they started having popup windows)

Like the article says, AOL and MSN tried the 'walled garden' approach, and found that it didn't pay off. If Yahoo! is bought out by a megacorporation, what's to stop me from using MetaCrawler or Google for searching the Internet?

Yahoo, in my opinion, has really gone down in quality in recent months, almost to the level of AltaVista. I only use Yahoo when I'm searching for a specific subject, and even then, this is only when Google can't find what I'm looking for. Disney and Go.com just flat out suck, period.

You might browse lists of photo sharing sites, such as this one at AmateurPhoto.About.Com. I looked at two, and see that PhotoLoft.Com allows browser or email upload, and there's a "Store" for creating gifts which involve your photos.

I then looked for a similar page on Yahoo!: Yahoo! ... Photography and found that ImageStation.Com allows several upload methods and has a "Store" which can apparently make prints (based on the price list in the upper left corner). Plenty of unexplored sites there, although many are professionally oriented. And "Yahoo! Photos" requires IE so is useless.

Note that now that you have the name of several services which meet your needs, you could now search for pages which list all those sites and you might find indexes which list more. Yup, a MetaCrawler search of "Imagestation PhotoLoft" (omit the quotation marks) found several photo service index pages.

If you ask Jon Udell, the web services are already here. The latest buzzword advances with XML, SOAP, XML-RPC, and friends are all just further refinement and evolution of the interface. Also, Udell's book, Practical Internet Groupware, talks extensively about adapting existing sites into web services. For example, a site like MetaCrawler demonstrates this in how it uses search engines' HTML "interface" to scoop up search results. Or, take the scripts that query news sites without the benefit of RDF or RSS, parsing HTML to scoop up and aggregate news headlines. These are all primitive web services.

And this is not to mention app servers such as Zope and Frontier, which are already built to offer web services natively. It just seems irresistable to use all of these simple building blocks to create neato keen distributed systems...

I heard an interesting quote from John Hagelin (3rd party candidate from the Natural Law Party) while watching a PBS special on 3rd party candidates last night. He said something to the effect of the only time we've had any real change in American politics was when a 3rd party candidate was was elected (remember of course that at one time the republican party was a 3rd party). Now I won't speak about the extent that this statement is true (although I believe it may be stretching the truth a little, I think it has some validity as well), but I think it underlies that fact that we won't get any real change with a republicrat in office.

Take any one of the many candidate selector quizzes and I bet that the candidate the most closely matches your views will not be Bush or Gore. I would suggest voting for the person who you most agree with; that sounds like a logical reason to give someone your vote. Although you are free, of course, to vote for whoever you want, and don't have to listen to my rambling...

If your site is based in the USA, then avoiding a lawsuit has some positive value. If your site belongs to an organization that receives any government funds, then complying with the ADA is worth at least that much to you.

Google is OK. I tend to use MetaCrawler most, then Alta Vista.

More than just pretty girls...

I have been using metacrawler for more than 5 years, when it was still a university research project. I use to say it was the smartest of all the search engines because it was the laziest: it simply forwards the requests to the other search engines, analyses their work, and returns the 10 best results. During five years, it never failed me. I use to think "If it can not be found on Metacrawler, DejaNews or FtpSearch, it is not on the net." Well, this is not true anymore, because now Metacrawler gives me more and more garbage, though, not (yet) as much as the other search engines.

*Sigh*

The thing that I really enjoy the most is the Search as a Phrase feature. I used to find everything with it. For example, to find

• lyrics: search for " we sailed unto the sun till we found the sea of green " as a phrase, and you will find the lyrics for Yellow Submarine by the Beattles
• .
• acronyms: search for " KGB stands for " as a phrase, and you'll discover that it means Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (try to find the same thing on another search engine! No way)
• specific definitions: search for " CORBA est un " as a phrase, and you'll be able to explain your work to your French cousin who is visiting you next week.

I have been using metacrawler for more than 5 years, when it was still a university research project. I use to say it was the smartest of all the search engines because it was the laziest: it simply forwards the requests to the other search engines, analyses their work, and returns the 10 best results. During five years, it never failed me. I use to think "If it can not be found on Metacrawler, DejaNews or FtpSearch, it is not on the net." Well, this is not true anymore, because now Metacrawler gives me more and more garbage, though, not (yet) as much as the other search engines.

*Sigh*

The thing that I really enjoy the most is the Search as a Phrase feature. I used to find everything with it. For example, to find

• lyrics: search for " we sailed unto the sun till we found the sea of green " as a phrase, and you will find the lyrics for Yellow Submarine by the Beattles
• .
• acronyms: search for " KGB stands for " as a phrase, and you'll discover that it means Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (try to find the same thing on another search engine! No way)
• specific definitions: search for " CORBA est un " as a phrase, and you'll be able to explain your work to your French cousin who is visiting you next week.

I have been using metacrawler for more than 5 years, when it was still a university research project. I use to say it was the smartest of all the search engines because it was the laziest: it simply forwards the requests to the other search engines, analyses their work, and returns the 10 best results. During five years, it never failed me. I use to think "If it can not be found on Metacrawler, DejaNews or FtpSearch, it is not on the net." Well, this is not true anymore, because now Metacrawler gives me more and more garbage, though, not (yet) as much as the other search engines.

*Sigh*

The thing that I really enjoy the most is the Search as a Phrase feature. I used to find everything with it. For example, to find

• lyrics: search for " we sailed unto the sun till we found the sea of green " as a phrase, and you will find the lyrics for Yellow Submarine by the Beattles
• .
• acronyms: search for " KGB stands for " as a phrase, and you'll discover that it means Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (try to find the same thing on another search engine! No way)
• specific definitions: search for " CORBA est un " as a phrase, and you'll be able to explain your work to your French cousin who is visiting you next week.

• Its light entry page : one picture, one light form and you get it. Compare with the hell that pours your modem whenever reloading av.com's index page.
• It is damn quick.
• It thinks like me : I mean it really returns me the web pages I want.
• It supports the same syntax as Altavista, at least the + and the - that make my life soooooo much easier...

I want to upgrade a 3 year old tower that requires very non-standard RAM. Ordering direct from a vendor or manufacturer would cost about $200. Searches on meta-store engines didn't do much better. When I checked most auction sites and meta-auction engines, I got zero hits. The sellers just aren't there.

But at eBay, I find a half-dozen new listings of them every goddam week, selling around $130. All of the other sites put together can't touch eBay's volume of sellers.

So what would eBay have to gain from allowing meta engines to spider them? Nothing! They dominate the auction market. If you really want to find something at the lowest price, you have to include eBay in your search. And if you already have to go to eBay, why bother with the meta engines or the other smaller auction sites at all?

"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." -- Max Planck

I know for a fact that many many times in the twentieth century, there have been inventors who came up with carburetor designs that enabled ANY vehicle to get 300 miles to the gallon or even more. My dad knew one such person personally. He invented a 300MPG carb, tried to market it, and instantly got bought out by Ford, I think it was. They bought his design for $50,000 (this was in the 50's, when 50 grand was actually worth something :) and then smothered it. Nobody heard of it again.

And if you really want to get into conspiracy theories, I suggest you just do a web search for "zero point energy". There are so many ways to use ZPE it's sickening, considering the fact that NONE of them have been even mentioned in mainstream media (owned by big business). It is possible to take damn near any existing electrical motor, add a few parts, and turn it into a generator that runs itself without any fuel. You just give it a spin and it runs forever. But guess what happens when someone tries to patent such a device? The patent office replies, "Oh. That, by definition, is a perpetual motion machine. We can't give patents on those. Sorry." They don't even bother testing the patent's claims, or try building one themselves, or even let the guy demonstrate it... they just refuse to patent it and move on. In New Zealand, a man who tried to patent a perpetual motion machine in 1970 suddenly found himself dead, and all his research materials and lab supplies and equipment just mysteriously vanished. History is replete with examples of this tyranny, and just about all of it is the big business collusion that keeps the oil producers making their trillions. What would happen if everyone alive knew they could get a generator the size of a small desk, put it in their garage, and cut the power lines to their house, and never have to buy fuel or pay for electricity ever again? Why, it would destroy Exxon, Texaco, Shell, and all of OPEC just about overnight. Can't have that. It's financial evolution: "Survival of the richest."

So, again, this is something you'll have to go do research on. Explaining how to convert a motor into a perpetual-motion generator is well beyond the scope of a slashdot post. Again, do "zero point energy" and "ZPE" searches on Metacrawler and prepare yourself for enlightenment.

Do not simply see the phrase "perpetual motion machine" in this post and scoff immediately. Science and physics doesn't even know what magnetism or gravity is, yet it claims to be able to state with absolute certainty that perpetual motions machines are impossible?? The sheer arrogance is staggering. "Yes, well, we realize we only understand about 0.01% of how the universe works, but we know you can't have perpetual motion. It's just preposterous." Give me a break.

• "The world is round," Columbus said. "Preposterous," the "scientists" of the 15th century said. "You'll fall off the edge."
• "Diseases are caused by microscopic creatures that I call 'germs' which get inside us and do harm to our cells," said Louis Pasteur. "Preposterous," the "scientists" said.
• "The earth actually revolves around the sun, and not the other way around," said Galileo. "Preposterous," the Catholic Church's "scientists" said. "Shut up or we'll torture and kill you."
• "Travelling faster than 60 MPH would be fatal."
• "Travelling faster than the speed of sound is impossible."
• "Travelling faster than light is impossible."
• "Perpetual motion machines simply cannot exist."

Does anyone see a pattern here? Humans are so stupid that they believe things just because they come out of an authority figure's mouth. Think for yourselves! Do your own research! It sickens and saddens me to know that the salvation of humanity is so close, yet people refuse to reach out and grab it just because they've been brainwashed all through school and childhood to not believe in it. I mean, please... How far would we have gotten if Columbus had just believed what the scientists told him without question instead of being brave and intelligent enough to go find out on his own? What would the world be like today if Pasteur hadn't thought "Hmm; I know people are going to laugh at me and perhaps worse for publishing the results of my research, but I have to do it because it'll save lives"? What if Orville & Wilbur Wright had just given up because everyone kept telling them that only birds could fly because God gave them wings and not us? Who knows how many times in history some brilliant bit of new thought has been squelched just because the person who thought it up believed the rhetoric against it? Say people had listened to Nicola Tesla instead of destroying him. How much further along would science be today if he'd been allowed to produce his electromagnetic shield, or his car that ran on nothing more than the electricity in the air? He had a car with a black box in it that had a lot of antennae sticking out of it; no engine, no fuel tank, no nothing, and all of this verified. He drove it around for many many years. But how many people have heard of it? It's just one of the truly innovative inventions of history that's been crushed out of existence by Those In Power who'd rather keep making money than let us have something that will bring pollution to a COMPLETE END. There never should have BEEN any pollution; Tesla and Marconi had perpetual motion generators 100 years ago but they went nowhere with them. Westinghouse destroyed Tesla. Even the Smithsonian (run by You Know Who Inc., of course) is trying to bury Tesla in obscurity in favor of Edison's crappy stab at electrical production.

So. Does anyone believe me? How many of you can break through your years of schooling and conditioning and brainwashing to see the real truth? How many of you will go further, and see for yourselves what is possible in the field of fuelless power generation? 'Cause I can't take much more of this. If you people allow yourselves to be ruled and crushed by big business and politicians, there's no hope for humanity. We'll just keep falling farther and farther into slavery until there's no more clean water, no more clean air, and no more fossil fuels left... but you can bet that as soon as the earth runs out of resources, big business will suddenly go "Oh, looky here! We've just discovered perpetual motion machines ARE possible! Now bow down and thank us for saving you!" and you fucking sheep will do it.

Baaaaaaaa-aaaaa-aaaaa-aaaaa.

If you read the instructions, Google tells you that you put phrases in quotation marks. Or maybe you should use Metacrawler, as it has a "phrase" button.

I'm a bit confused by the idea that setting the time to search is a new idea - metacrawler has been doing that for years. In any event - a meta search en gine for up-to-date news is way cool, and it's about time. (I'm surprised it took so long, actually.)

Metacrawler now searches . But it seems that Microsoft's homepage has dropped off the top 30 on the more evil than Satan himself scale.

The Meta-Search site DOGPILE has a Usenet option. It sends your search to Deja's current database, Altavista/Remarq's database, and Deja's archive database.

Their sister site Metacrawler also provides an interface for Deja's database.

A Metacrawler search for neuron stem cells human shows an assortment of papers.

There's another discussion here with related chatter. Slashdot: Brain Cell Rejuvenation

--

Hehe, I didn't think metacrawler would let me do a search this long. In any case, do you have a link to any info about this on the 'net? I can't seem to find anything.

http://mc7.metacrawler.com/crawler?gener al=What%27s+interesting+is+that+there%27s+a+case+a gainst+the+Onandoga+nation%2C+in+upstate +New+York%2C+who+are+selling+non-taxed+cigarettes+ over+the+interent+and+making+a+bundle.+T he+Onandoga+nation+argues+that+the+sale+of+cigaret tes+occurs+on+their+ground%2C+so+it+is+o utside+the+US+tax+law+jurisdiction%2C+but+%28I+bel ieve+it+was+the+Syracuse%29+D.A.+says+th at+the+sale+occurs+on+the+users%27+side%2C+and+thu s+should+be+taxed.+Interesting+to+see+wh at+the+court+decides...&method=1®ion=0&rpp=20&time out=0&hpe=10&sort=0&power=0&format=regul ar

1. Yahoo!
   
2. altavista.digital.com (huh? what's with the old addy?)
   
3. www.metacrawler.com

If you ask Google "What the best operating system in the world?", and all of a sudden the link order changes:

1. Welcome to Microsoft's Homepage
2. The Linux Home Page
3. The FreeBSD Project

1. Yahoo!
2. altavista.digital.com (huh? what's with the old addy?)
3. www.metacrawler.com

Google's team may have been being just a bit silly, but OTOH, they can't make a handler for every possible approach to the questions they want to answer differently.

Looking for sense in search engine data and results is like making a psychoanalysis of an IRC bot.

I used to like metacrawler but then they went too commercial.

I've often wondered how meta search engines get away with this type of practice. I have noticed that Metacrawler doesn't advertize much, attributes links to the engines that provided them, and seems to sometimes have ads from the other engines that it searches.

Site that try to find the best price for items must pose an even more troublesome problem for online retailers. There's a site that search 20+ online booksellers and returns their prices. A site like this will bring some business to your site but will force you to lower your margins to compete.