Web
Search Engine FAQ — Gary Price
Searcher • Vol. 9 No. 9
— October 2001
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PDF VERSION • RETURN TO ARTICLE
| Feature |
Alta
Vista
|
Google
|
| URL
|
http://www.altavista.com
(Basic Interface)
http://www.altavista.com/sites/search/adv
(Advanced Interface)
http://www.altavista.com/sites/search/power
(Search Assistant)
|
http://www.google.com
http://www.google.com/advanced_search
(Advanced Search)
|
| Coverage
|
423
million pages (Search Engine Showdown 4/2001)
|
625
million pages (Search Engine Showdown 4/2001)
|
| Stop
Words
|
No.
|
Yes.
(However, they are searchable by placing a + sign in front of the word)
|
Major
Commands
|
Boolean
(and, or, and not) Advanced Interface +, - , Boolean (AND, OR, AND NOT)
Basic Interface
|
+
(to search stop words), -, OR
|
| Nesting
|
Yes.
|
No.
|
Default
Search
|
OR
(Basic Interface)
|
And
|
Phrase
Searching
|
Terms
inside “quotation marks”
|
Yes,
terms inside “quotation marks”
|
Truncation/
Wildcard
|
Use
* (0-5 character) Internal or end truncation
* can be used
to represent an entire word inside a phrase
|
No.
|
Case
Sensitive
|
Yes.
|
No.
|
Search
by Field
|
Many
options, including:
Title:
Link:
Domain:
Host:
Additional Search
Fields at http://help.altavista.com/adv_search/syntax
|
Yes,
options include:
intitle:
site:
inurl:
link:
filetype:
Ticker: <stock
information>
|
| Proximity
|
near
(proximity operator, 10 words in either direction) NEAR for basic interface
|
No.
|
| Directory
|
LookSmart
|
Open
Directory Project
[http://directory.google.com]
|
Other
Searches
|
News
(content provided by Moreover), Image, MP3, and Video
|
Image
Search [http://images.google.com]
Google Groups,
Usenet material [http://groups.google.com]
Uncle Sam, U.S.
government content
[http://www.google.com/unclesam/]
|
Special
Features
|
Ticker
symbols provide direct links to stock quote, news, SEC filings
|
Translation
Telephone Search
(U.S. Home and Business Numbers)
Maps
Web page cache
Dictionary Definitions
Similar Pages
|
| Comments
|
If
the Advanced Search interface is used, terms should be placed in the “sort
by” box. If terms are not placed in this box, result sets return in completely
random order. No relevancy ranking algorithm is applied.
All pages are completely
crawled up to 100 k of content. After that, any remaining content is not
searchable. Up to 4 MB of links are crawled and indexed.
|
All
pages are crawled up to 110 k of content. After that, any remaining content
is not searchable. All pages in cache are also limited to 110 k.
Only search engine
to crawl and .pdf content searchable.
|
| Feature |
Northern
Light
|
MSN
Search
|
AlltheWeb
|
| URL
|
http://www.northernlight.com
http://www.northernlight.com/power.html
(Power/Advanced
Interface)
http://www.nlresearch.com
(Research Interface)
|
http://search.msn.com
http://search.msn.com/advanced.asp
(Advanced Interface)
|
http://www.alltheweb.com
http://www.alltheweb.com/
advanced?t=all&c=web
(Advanced Search)
|
| Coverage
|
364
million pages (as of 8/2001)
|
480
million pages
(Search Engine
Showdown 4/2001)
|
539
million pages
(Search Engine
Showdown 4/2001)
|
| Stop
Words
|
No.
|
Yes.
|
No.
|
Major
Commands
|
+,
- , Boolean (AND, OR, NOT)
|
+,
- , Boolean (AND, OR, NOT)
|
+,
- , Boolean (AND, OR, NOT)
|
| Nesting
|
Yes.
|
Yes.
|
Yes.
|
Default
Search
|
And
|
And
|
And
|
Phrase
Searching
|
Yes,
terms inside “quotation marks”
|
Yes,
terms inside “quotation marks.”
|
Yes,
terms inside “quotation marks.”
|
Truncation/
Wildcard
|
*
(asterisk) can be used to replace multiple characters. % (percent) symbol
is used to replace only one character.
|
No.
(Stemming option available on Advanced Interface.)
|
No.
|
Case
Sensitive
|
No.
|
Yes.
|
No.
|
Search
by Field
|
Yes,
options include:
url:
title:
pub:
company: (special
collection only)
ticker: (some
special collection only)
text:
|
Numerous
fields are searchable using fill-in boxes and pull-down menus on the Advanced
Search interface.
Additionally,
fielded searching can be achieved using special syntax. Here are a few
examples:
title:
domain:
linkdomain:
|
Search
by Field In addition to several fields available via pull-down menus on
the advanced interface, specific syntax for many fields was introduced
in July, 2001.
|
| Proximity
|
No.
|
No.
|
No.
|
| Directory
|
No.
|
LookSmart
|
No.
|
Other
Searches
|
News
content (56 newswires) database updated in real-time Free to read for 2
weeks.
|
News
Search (primarily MSNBC content)
|
url.tld:
url.host:
normal.title:
link.extension
Additional information
at http://www.alltheweb.com/
help/basic.html
|
Special
Features
|
Alerts
(A free service. Results are returned via e-mail) Special Collection (Full-Text
material from over 7,100 publications)
Investext, Market
Research, EIU content is also available. Materials are purchased as needed.
|
— |
Picture
Search
MP3 Search
Video Search
Mobile Search
|
| Comments
|
The
automatic creation of the Northern Light’s “custom folders” organizes content
by subject, type, source, and language.
|
MSN
uses an Inktomi database. According to Greg Notess, it is one of the largest
available from an Inktomi partner. To identify other Inktomi partners visit
http://www.inktomi.com/
products/search/products/tryit.html
|
Searching
from the main interface will also run the search in the Picture, MP3, and
Video databases. If results are found they are presented in a box on the
results page.
|
|
