Meta Search Engine: An Introductory Study

Conference Article

1. Two Days’ National Conference on
“ Integrating ICT in Academic
libraries: Making a Different in
Knowledge Age”
12, 13 August 2014
Organized by
Central University of Karnataka
Venue: Central University, of Karnataka , Gulbarga

2. Orgagnngizedgrg gbygiRnschS gr
Research Scholar
Department of Library and Information
Science
Gulbarga University, Gulbarga, Karnataka
[email protected] Prasanna Devaramatha Anilkumar
Research Scholar
Department of Library and Information
Science
Gulbarga University, Gulbarga, Karnataka
[email protected]

3. 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.

4.  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.

5. 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".

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. How Meta Search Engines works:

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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.

13. 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.

14. 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.Seekz
A 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. iBoogie
Puts 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. 15. inCrawler
A 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.

16. 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.

17. 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.

18. 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.

19. 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.

20. 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.

21. 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.

22. 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.

23. Thank You.