Net Q & A

Question of the Month: November 2000

Answer

"Meta engines" are search engines that combine results from other search engines. Dogpile is a popular example.

While there is a place for meta search engines, and people whose opinions I respect swear by some (like Copernic, which is installed on the user's local computer and sends out its searches from there) the idea is less attractive than might be assumed. One drawback is that the search engines do not usually enable the sophisticated search refinement tools (like search qualifiers "AND," "OR" and "NEAR" or date restrictions, etc.) This makes it more difficult to target your searches.

This deficiency ties into what is probably the more important general problem with meta engines: they usually don't help with what is usually the biggest challenge. The big problem with most Internet searches is not finding enough "hits," or pages that contain your search terms. The problem is usually sorting out the few sites that are most useful from a mass of irrelevant sites. In theory, a meta search engine that intelligently

Jerry Lawson

This page last revised: November 4, 2000.