Comparative Features of Major WWW Search Engines

Randy D. Ralph, MLIS, Ph.D.

In place April 19, 1997. Copyright © 1997, Randy D. Ralph. All rights reserved.
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Search
Engine
Simple
Form
Search Logic Fuzzy
Logic
Term
Weighting
Sorted
Output
Ranked
Output
Find
Like
Boolean Proximity Nesting Truncation
AltaVista X X X X X

X X
Excite! X X X X
X X X X X
HotBot
X X X
X X
X
Infoseek X X X X X X X X X
Lycos X


X


X
Open Text
X X X



X (X)
WebCrawler X X X X
X X X X
Yahoo! X X X X

X



Explanation of Feature Categories

Simple Form:   The interface is simple; that is, if it contains only a single entry box and no more than one or two simple blink lists or check boxes.

Search Logic:

  • Boolean - supports the use of standard Boolean operators.
  • Proximity - supports the use of some form of word proximity searching, exclusive of the ability to search on phrases.
  • Nesting - permits the use of nested logic in search queries.
  • Truncation - allows search terms to be truncated or implicitly truncates entries.

Fuzzy Logic:   Some sort of artificial intelligence is used to interpret the search query either to perform the search or to rank search output.

Term Weighting:   The use of a prefix (+) to weight or (-) to exclude search terms is supported.

Sorted Output:   Output is sorted by the search engine or can be sorted by the user.

Ranked Output:   Output is ranked by relevance.

Find Like:   The engine provides a quick link on every return to allow finding similar sites.

The search engines are ranked by the number of features available in the figure below:



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