Gotta catch 'em all: metasearching the Web

Volume 8, Number 3 • March 2000

Gotta catch 'em all: metasearching the Web
by Irene E. McDermott

INTERNET EXPRESS column discusses a search that started while looking for certain Pokemon characters that had gone out of production. Says that the search was a struggle, and if it is this difficult to find a toy, how much more difficult it must be to locate the pearls of information that could help a business or save a life. Notes that Web sites that access several search engines from one place have been around for awhile and are improving. Offers a list of metasearch sites such as SavvySearch, which it calls the best metacrawler on the open Web. Also lists three freeware programs that allow users to search many engines at once. Compares the two types of search tools, and says that the program allows custom searches, and the results tend to be more complete. However, says that SavvySearch combines the speed of a site-based search with the customizability of the programs. Contains four screen displays.