Microsoft's MSN Search service is a LookSmart-powered directory of web sites, with secondary results that come from AltaVista. RealNames and Direct Hit data is also made available. MSN Search also offers a unique way for Internet Explorer 5 users to save past searches. Receives search results from inktomi, overture and looksmart search engines.

AltaVista is consistently one of the largest search engines on the web, in terms of pages indexed. Its comprehensive coverage and wide range of power searching commands makes it a particular favorite among researchers.AltaVista opened in December 1995. It was owned by Digital, then run by Compaq (which purchased Digital in 1998), then spun off into a separate company which is now controlled by CMGI Receives search results from dmoz directory and overture search engine.

The main listings for categories and web sites come from the Open Directory. Before the launch of AOL Search in October 1999, the AOL search service was Excite-powered AOL NetFind. Recieves search results from google search engine and dmoz directory.

Ask Jeeves is a human-powered search service that aims to direct you to the exact page that answers your question. If it fails to find a match within its own database, then it will provide matching web pages from various search engines.Receives search results from google and teoma search engines.

Excite is one of the popular search services on the web. It offers a medium-sized index and integrates non-web material such as company information and sports scores into its results, when appropriate. Excite was launched in late 1995. It grew quickly in prominence and consumed two of its competitors, Magellan in July 1996, and WebCrawler in November 1996. These continue to run as separate services.

Formerly called All The Web, FAST Search aims to index the entire web. It was the first search engine to break the 200 million web page index milestone and consistently has one of the largest indexes of the web. FAST Search launched in May 1999. Supplies search results for alltheweb search engine and lycos search enigneINFOSEEK.COM
Go is a portal site produced by Infoseek and Disney. It offers portal features such as personalization and free e-mail, plus the search capabilities of the former Infoseek search service, which has now been folded into Go. Searchers will find that Go consistently provides quality results in response to many general and broad searches, thanks to its ESP search algorithm. It also has an impressive human-compiled directory of web sites. Go officially launched in January 1999. It is not related to GoTo, below. The former Infoseek service launched in early 1995.

Google is a now the largest search engine in the web, They are the leading provider of results and a recent stats they serve 85% search results, They make heavy use of link popularity as a primary way to rank web sites. Google also has a huge index of the web and provides some results to Yahoo and Netscape Search. Supplies search results for lycos, hotbot, aol, askjeeves, teoma, netscape, iwon and yahoo search engines. It receives search results from dmoz directory.

HotBot is a favorite among researchers due to its many power searching features. In most cases, HotBot's first page of results comes from the Inktomi search engine, which is also used by other services. It gets its directory information from the Open Directory project (see below). HotBot launched in May 1996 as Wired Digital's entry into the search engine market. Lycos purchased Wired Digital in October 1998 and continues to run HotBot as a separate search service. Receives search results from inktomi search engine, google search engine and from dmoz directory.

Backed by US television network CBS, iWon has a directory of web sites generated automatically by Inktomi, which also provides its more traditional crawler-based results. iWon gives away daily, weekly and monthly prizes in a marketing model unique among the major services. It launched in Fall 1999.Receives search from google search engine and from dmoz directory.

LookSmart is a human-compiled directory of web sites. In addition to being a stand-alone service, LookSmart provides directory results to MSN Search, Excite and many other partners. Inktomi provides LookSmart with search results when a search fails to find a match from among LookSmart's reviews. LookSmart launched independently in October 1996, was backed by Reader's Digest for about a year, and then company executives bought back control of the service. Receives search results from inktomi search engine and supplies search results to msn search engine.

Lycos started out as a search engine, depending on listings that came from spidering the web. In April 1999, it shifted to a directory model similar to Yahoo. Its main listings come from the Open Directory project, and then secondary results come from spidering the web. Lycos also feature another directory of web sites called Lycos Community Guides. Sites are automatically listed in these guides using technology from WiseWire, a company Lycos acquired in early 1998. Lycos is one of the oldest search services, around since May 1994. It began as a project at Carnegie Mellon University. The name Lycos comes from the Latin for "wolf spider." In October 1998, Lycos acquired the competing HotBot search service, which continues to be run separately. Receives search results from fast, google search engines and from dmoz directory.

Netscape Search's results come primarily from the Open Directory and Netscape's own "Smart Browsing" database, which does an excellent job of listing "official" web sites. Secondary results come from Google. At the Netscape Netcenter portal site, other search engines are also featured. Receives search results from google search engine and from dmoz directory.

The Open Directory uses volunteer editors to catalog the web. Formerly known as NewHoo, it was launched in June 1998. It was acquired by Netscape in November 1998, and the company pledged that anyone would be able to use information from the directory through an open license arrangement. Netscape itself was the first licensee. Lycos and AOL Search also make heavy use of Open Directory data, while AltaVista and HotBot prominently feature Open Directory categories within their results pages. Supplies search results to lycos, hotbot, aol, google, teoma, netscape, iwon, altavista search engines.

WebCrawler has the smallest index of any major search engine on the web -- think of it as Excite Lite. The small index means WebCrawler is not the place to go when seeking obscure or unusual material. However, some people may feel that by having indexed fewer pages, WebCrawler provides less overwhelming results in response to general searches. WebCrawler opened to the public on April 20, 1994. It was started as a research project at the University of Washington. America Online purchased it in March 1995 and was the online service's preferred search engine until Nov. 1996. That was when Excite, a WebCrawler competitor, acquired the service. Excite continues to run WebCrawler as an independent search engine.

Yahoo is the web's most popular search service and has a well-deserved reputation for helping people find information easily. The secret to Yahoo's success is human beings. It is the largest human-compiled guide to the web, employing about 150 editors in an effort to categorize the web. Yahoo has over 1 million sites listed. Yahoo also supplements its results with those from Google (Google took over from Inktomi in july 2000). If a search fails to find a match within Yahoo's own listings, then matches from Google are displayed. Google matches also appear after all Yahoo matches have first been shown. Yahoo is the oldest major web site directory, having launched in late 1994. Receives search results from google and overture search engines.