Don't just search...GOOGLE (google.com)

Member Name: cjkace

Product:	google.com
Date:	04/06/01 (26 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fast search, best results, doesn't go overboard with advertising

Disadvantages: -

Google is, in my opinion, the absolute top search engine. You can find what you want with the minimum of fuss and without over the top advertising. It's speed, compared to some of the other search engines is blindingly fast and more importantly the results are relevant.

Anyone that has used Altavista, will know how often the top 20 results contain references to the same site. Google cuts out this rubbish better than any other engine and has the added advantage of being multi-lingual. It also has the ability to translate pages, but this has a very limited use and doesn't seem particularly accurate.

Search engines, not to be confused with web directories, use a piece of software called a robot (or spider) to go through websites, logging the pertinent details such as site title and content. In the past this was very easy to fool, but the software has improved and many of the old webmasters tricks no longer work. Google is also unique, I believe, in that it ranks sites according to how relevant and how many sites of a similar nature link to it. This is a feature that I believe will become more prevalent as the internet develops further, and it becomes more difficult to seperate the wheat from the chaff.

Web directories on the other hand are more difficult to get listed on simply because the websites are reviewed by real people. This is how Yahoo first started, but the quality of the directory has gone down. Web directories usually use third party search engines, and Google is the official search engine for Yahoo among others.

Google have also bought the usenet archives from Deja.com, and after a few teething troubles (notably that they changed the thread layout, so you'd only get half the messages), it is now almost as good as it was, with the ability to post newsgroup messages, making it a very decent free newsgroup service.

If you are looking for the most relevant results to your search, and want it as fast
as possible the there is know other choice but GOOGLE.

Summary: