Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Alternative and Customized Search Engines

Here's a quick overview of the sites discussed in this lecture:

Exalead
  • Great Advance Search Tools
  • Excellent tool for complex searching
  • Customizable front page: add "shortcuts" to other finding tools
  • www.exalead.com

Quintura
  • Data viz with clustering
  • Useful for disambiguation, determining topics within a concept
  • Uses Yahoo search engin
  • www.quintura.com

Kosmix
  • Clusters by type and topic!
  • includes "overview" page - great summary
  • Still in Beta but very promising
  • www.kosmix.com

Clusty

CrossEngine
  • Easy comparison of search results
  • NOT a meta-search engine
  • Well organized finding tool
  • Useful if you don't know where to start
  • www.crossengine.com

SRCHR
  • Similar to CrossEngine, but creates RSS Feeds for search results
  • Mouseover for thumbnails
  • Can create your own page of search tools!
  • www.srchr.com

Scandoo
  • Searches Google, Yahoo, MSN or Ask
  • Checks for malware, phishing, offensive content, in Real Time
  • Powered by corporate web security company
  • www.scandoo.com

Also mentioned were the 'Do it yourself types"--Yahoo Search Builder, Google Co-op, Swicki, Rollyo and Gigablast CTS