Two Days’ National Conference on “ Integrating ICT in Academic

libraries: Making a Different in Knowledge Age”

12, 13 August 2014

Organized byCentral University of Karnataka

Venue: Central University, of Karnataka , Gulbarga

Prasanna Devaramatha Anilkumar

Research ScholarDepartment of Library and

Information ScienceGulbarga University, Gulbarga,

Karnatakaanilmagala@gmail.com

Introduction:Meta search engines are search engines that search other search engines.

A meta search engine submits your query to several other search engines and returns a summary of the results.

Therefore, the search results you receive are an aggregate result of multiple searches.

In Meta search engines search strategy have a broader scope than searching a single search engine.

The meta search engine must use its own algorithm to choose the best results from multiple search engines.

Meta-Search Engines search and index the contents of other search engines rather than searching the WWW directly. A meta-search engine sends your request to other search engines, collects the most relevant hits, and presents them to you.

Meta-search engines allow you to search a variety of search engines without having to visit each one individually.

.Meta-search engines are good places to start a search because they can give you a general feeling for the body of information and websites available to you on a given topic.

A Meta search engine is a system that supports unified access to multiple local search engines; it does not maintain its own index on web pages .

A metasearch engine is an effective tool to quickly reach a large portion of the deep Web.

Meaning and Definitions: Meta = “more comprehensive = transcending.”- webster.com

“A Meta Search engine allows you to search multiple search engines at once, returning more comprehensive and relevant results, fast.” – MetaCrawler

According to Wikipedia entry defines a meta-search engine as a search engine that sends user requests to several other search engines and/or databases and aggregates the results into a single list or displays them according to their source.

According to the computeruser.com dictionary, search engines are "programs on the Internet that help users search for files and information...Most search engines find files that contain a key word or words typed in by the user. Some search engines specialize in a subject area or type of file. Others, called meta-search engines, query a number of regular search engines and collect the best results."

A meta-searcher is "A regular search engine allows a user to search a single database. A meta-searcher is a front end that passes each query to multiple search engines".

Features of MSE :

Unifies the Search Interface and provides a consistent user interface. Standardizes the query structure.May make use of an independent ranking method for the results (rank-

merging).May have an independent ranking system for each search

engine/database it searches.Meta Search is not a search for Meta Data.Support and utilize the searching syntax of each seach engine, including

Booleans, wildcards, phrase searching, pluses and minuses, field searching, proximity operators, and date limits.

Can consolidate and remove duplicates from the results. Search many search engines, including Google, Altavista, AlltheWeb, and

Yahoo. Allow you to select which search engines to use. Can search in multiple languages.

Need of Meta search engines:

Individual Search engines don’t cover all the web by themselves.Individual Search Engines are prone to spamming (people trying to raise

their ranking profile. In a non-legitimate manner or to promote

commerce).Difficulty in deciding and obtaining results with combined searches on

different search engines.Data Fusion (multiple formats supported),In Case of niche search engines provides the ‘big picture’.Takes less effort.Automatically ranks results.

How Meta Search Engines works:

Some of the Important Meta search engines:

1. Ixquick (ixquick.com)Can translate the syntax of your search into that of individual search engines. Supports most of the syntax of the search engines it uses. Eliminates duplicates. Searches Ask Jeeves/Teoma, EntireWeb, FindWhat, Gigablast, Go,

LookSmart, MSN, Netscape, Open Directory, Overture ‘The world’s most powerful metasearch engine”, includes universal power

search, global search and search refinement. Toolbar download available. A site that has been around since 1998, and is best known as the world’s most

private search engine. A query there makes it easy to get listings from a ton

of other sites maintaining their own indexes.

2. ez2Find (www.ez2find.com)

Searches: AlltheWeb, Teoma, Google, Yahoo!, AltaVista, Wisenut, ODP, and MSN.

Says that the searches, "...parse the results, remove the duplicates, include links to relevant directory categories (directory results from the Open Directory) and to clustered results."

A Global meta search engine that searches AlltheWeb, Teoma, Google, Yahoo!, AltaVista, Wisenut, ODP, and MSN, parse the results, remove the duplicates, include links to relevant directory categories (directory results from the Open Directory) and to clustered results. Calculate result relevance by an algorithm that count the number of time the link was found in the search engines and its position on them.

3. Mamma.com (www.mamma.com)

Searches Google, Lycos, MSN, Teoma, and more. “The mother of all search engines”, Originally launched in 1996, Mamma was one of the first ever

meta-search engines. It currently queries the top major websites to deliver its results. However, it doesn’t clearly disclose which ones it uses.

4. Search.com (www.search.com)

Claims that it can "search once for results from over 1,000 search engines, Web directories, auctions, storefronts, news sources, discussion groups, reference sites, and more."

This resource has been around since 1996, and provides you with results from Bing, Blekko, Google and DMOZ. It is currently owned by CBS Interactive, which bought out previous owner, CNET, in 2008.

5. MetaCrawler (metacrawler.com)

Supports some of the syntax of the search engines it uses. Searches Lycos, WebCrawler, Infoseek, Excite, Thunderstone,

AltaVista, GoTo, and Yahoo Uses innovative metasearch technology to search the Internet’s top

search engines, including Google, Yahoo! Search, MSN Search, Ask Jeeves, About, MIVA, LookSmart and more. Search refinement available.

6. DogPile(www.dogpile.com)

Uses some of the syntax of the search engines it searches. Searches Google,Yahoo, AltaVista, Ask Jeeves, About, LookSmart,

Overture, Teoma, FindWhat Puts the power [of] all the leading search engines together in one

search box to deliver the best combined results. Toolbar download available.

This sites provides you with results from up to 10 other top resources, including pay-per-click and free directories, such as LookSmart, About.com and the Open Directory Project (ODP).

A top aggregator of the most relevant searches from Google, Bing, Yahoo! and Ask. It delivers them conveniently on a single webpage. Dogpile is owned by InfoSpace, which is currently one of the most popular sites in its niche.

7. ProFusion (www.profusion.com)More sophisticated tool than most. Searches AllTheWeb, AltaVista, About, AOL, LookSmart, Lycos,

Metacrawler, MSN, Netscape, Raging Search, Teoma, WiseNut 8. Surfwax(www.surfwax.com)

Claims that it "can use a site's existing search capability as part of the meta-search process. Thus, we are able to retrieve from non-subscription portions of what is commonly called the, "invisible web."

9. Turbo10 (www.turbo10.com)From the UK Also searches many "deep" or "hidden" web resources.

10. Vivisimo (www.vivisimo.com)Targets MSN, Netscape, Lycos, Looksmart, Wisenut, Open

Directory, Overture, GigaBlast, and LII, along with severa news sources.

11. kartOO A visual meta search engine that instead of showing up traditional search

results pages, displays a graphical map of search results. Honestly, I don’t get the point.

12.SeekzA parallel web search engine that queries many of the Internet’s top search

engines and displays results in groups with the most relevant website appearing first. Removes duplicate results as well.

13. iBoogiePuts documents with similar content or with related topics into the same

group. Each group is assigned a label based on the content of the documents. 14. Zuula

Provides search unaltered search results from various search engines giving users the chance to check them first before going to results from individual search engines. And it even remembers which search engine you have been to so you can easily switch back and forth. Sponsored links are separated.

15. inCrawlerA metasearch engine and a web directory in one. Works like your

traditional search portal where categories are displayed upfront just below the search toolbox.

16. Seek2Day Gathers results from 17 different major search engines and in a very

quick way decides which information is most relevant to the user. The results are then presented in a comprehensive format.

17. WindSeek Pulls results from many of the major search engines simultaneously

with lightning speed and accuracy. 18. Vroosh

VROOSH.com is a metasearch engine that also acts as a metacrawler utilizing fast parallel technology for speed and accuracy. Metasearch using Keywords in any language, use Advanced Search to search in a specific Country or metacrawler for MP3,and FTP sites.

19. WebCrawler.com Another popular portal that collects the most relevant searches from other

top websites, delivering them conveniently onto a single page. It was developed in 1994 by Brian Pinkerton at the University of Washington. Originally it had it’s own spider and index, but changed in 2008. It is also currently owned by Infospace, Inc.

20. TurboScout search 21 search engines without retyping the search engine name. To

limit your search into one search engine, all you have to do is enter your keyword and click on the name of the specific engine.

21. FinQoo the next generation meta search engine that lets you search, share and

share summarize. It doesn’t have an about page yet though, so I’m wondering whose responsible for it. The Philippine flag right up the search box, probably made by some Filipino tech guys.

22. Polymeta an intelligent and advanced meta search and clustering engine that enables

organizations and individuals to simultaneously search diverse information resources on the web with a common interface. Search results are merged, ranked and presented in relevance order. Uses a natural language processing and information retrieval algorithms in its query analysis and search result refinement.

23.Yippy.com Formerly known as Clusty, Yippy queries multiple other datasources and

combines the results to be displayed as a group or cloud, on one screen. You do not need to be concerned about submitting your site to Yippy; if it’s included in the other major search engines it will get picked up automatically.

24. SearchSalad Search Salad brings together results from the top search engines and also

from the major review sites all in one place giving you the ability to see the top results from the major sites all at once. This combined with Search Salad’s customised search environment means that you see the best of what the web can offer in terms of search.

25. Infospace.com Founded in early 1996 by Naveen Jain, Infospace currently operates one of

the Internet’s most popular Metasearch engines. You can perform queries using a specific keyword to get results from Google, Yahoo!, Bing and Ask. You can also find images, people, businesses and videos using its available search verticals.

26. Excite.com A web portal that’s owned by Mindspark, Excite was one of most popular

Internet destinations of the 1990s. Today, its SERPs are an aggregated display of listing from the 3 top general search engines.

27. Zoo.com In 2012, this website was changed from resource about zoos to a meta search

engine that displays what it considers the best results from Google and Yahoo. Metacrawler, one of the previous 10 tens in this list redirects here. The site is owned by Infospace, a company that owns numerous Internet properties.

28. Clusty Clusty queries several top search engines, combines the results, and generates an ordered list based on comparative ranking. This “metasearch” approach helps raise the best results to the top and push search engine spam to the bottom.

29. qkSearch calls itself a 3-in-1 meta search engine by providing clustering search, split search and blended search (not functional yet).

30. Unabot Unabot is all-in-one meta search site that allows the user to choose from hundreds of different search engines, directories, and indices to query.

Advantages of MSE :

You can get results from multiple search engines without having

to visit each one. It gives your search a broader scope to look at,

since each search engine's index differs from each others.You get a general sense of what is available on a subject. They are good for "fast and dirty" searching, where you need to get

some kind of basic result quickly.

Disadvantages of MSE :

May need to decode query forms.Translations of query syntax and fields not exact.Some sources don't sort by relevance.No way to compare relevance.Vulnerable to search spam.Results returned as HTML without useful tagging, require screen

scrapping.Variable quality of search engines.Must keep up with changes in source engines.You usually get a small subset of the possible relevant records on

individual search engines. Not all of the search syntax (functions, operators, etc.) is supported for

each search engine. In other words, a metasearch engine usually does not or can not use the full sophisticated capabilites of each search engine employed.

Conclusion:

A Meta search engine is a search tool that sends user requests to several other search engines and/or databases and aggregates the results into a single list or displays them according to their source. Meta search engines enable users to enter search criteria once and access several search engines simultaneously. Meta search engines operate on the premise that the Web is too large for any one search engine to index it all and that more comprehensive search results can be obtained by combining the results from several search engines. This also may save the user from having to use multiple search engines separately. The process of fusion also improves the search results. We discussed several meta search engines and its feature as same as all meta search engines have their own advantages and limitations. Apart from this meta search engines are very need and helpfull to find right information from right sources through right way.

Thank You.