Metacrawler is the best search engine
Written: Jan 01 '01 (Updated Jan 01 '01)
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Metacrawler is the best search engine out there because it combines several search engines in one for a very efficient and accurate search. It gives you the option of searching for "any" of the words, "all" of them, or as a "phrase." It is very effective and I almost always find what I am looking for. The search is very fast and the site is set up very simply with no excess graphics that slow the loading time.
If you are searching for something very specific and obscure, Google or Altavista may be a better bet than metacrawler since they find more things that are buried within a website. For instance, a person's name. If you do use altavista or Google, they often find a lot of irrelevent sites. Make sure you put your phrase in quotation marks to avoid this. For instance, if I was on altavista searching for Brad Pitt, I would have to enclose the name in quotation marks, otherwise any site with a mention of "Brad" OR "Pitt." However, most of the time, I want to search for something that is the subject of the website. Since there is so much information about Brad Pitt on the web, I would want to use metacrawler to find fan sites. If I used Altavista or Google, I would find thousands of sites that simply mention his name.
Metacrawler also gives you the option of searching "the web," "directory," "audio/MP3," "images," "newsgroups," or "auctions" with an easy flip-down menu. With altavista, you have to click on a link in order to search anything other than the web, which slows down the process. However, I have never been able to get MP3s to download from anyplace other than Napster. The only feature of metacrawler that I have used besides searching the web is searching for images. It finds several thumbnail images, but the links are sometimes broken when you click on them. I find it much more effective to find images from fansites or other websites.
A fun way to kill time and procrastinate is MetaSpy, a cute feature of Metacrawler. It updates every 15 seconds and lets you see what other people are searching for.
Metacrawler enables users to customize the site. Several options are available from changing the color scheme to specifying which search engines you want metacrawler to use.
I have heard others sing the praises of Google, but it is Metacrawler for me.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
beckytcy
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Member: Becky
Location: Boston
Reviews written: 271
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