Content Developers: Don’t Forget About Meta Search Engines

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As online content creators, we often use search engines to look for citations, information from articles, public domain images and general background material for the content we create. While we all use the most popular search engines, Google, Yahoo and Bing, we should not forget about the meta search engines.

 

So, what is a meta search engine?

Simply put, it’s a program that searches in other search engines at the same time. Let me repeat: META SEARCH ENGINES search OTHER SEARCH ENGINES AT THE SAME TIME!

How can this work for you. Here’s an example:

Let’s say you want to search for public domain images to use for a class you are building. Your usual first step may be to go to Google and type in “public domain image”, right?

In doing this, Google returns some nice results for you to check out. Great! Now, let’s try a meta search engine such as dogpile.com and see what it returns.
 

 See all of the results. The difference is that DogPile returns results from Google among other search engines. I like to think of it as casting a wider net. Notice that it lists Google and Yahoo at the top. (*I should say that many of the results are similar to Google for many search subjects but there are some subjects where it is good to see more results.)

Nice, huh! 

Meta search engines have been around for a while now. They are quite helpful when you don’t have a lot of time and need the most comprehensive results you can find quickly. So, don’t forget about them. Use them when you need to. 

Below is a list of some of the popular meta search engines:

1) www.iBoogie.tv

I love this meta search. It uses clustering in its search results. The results are listed on the right side along with a topic/subtopic clickable index on the left side.  This way, you can view different “aspects” of the search term you are trying to find out about.

2) www.dogpile.com
I’ve been using this one since the late nineties. It is simple and easy to remember. For simple searches of popular topics on Google and Yahoo, Dogpile is all you need.

3) www.webcrawler.com

I use this one when I want what is called a full-text document search. Many search engines do this but I just find that WebCrawler returns results that are sometimes missed.

  

There are many, many more of these meta search engines out there. Dogpile and Webcrawler have been around for a longer period of time. Companies in this space change and are bought over by larger companies quite often. To find more meta search tools, search for them using the keywords “best meta search engines” in Google.com and Yahoo.com.

 

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