Which search engine when? Overview of Internet search engines

Search engines that help you find whatever you're looking for. If you know the kind of information that you want, this page will assist you in identifying good web search engines to use.

Major types of search engine

Keyword Search engines
You know what you're looking for, and can describe it with some key words or phrases.
Google is always a good bet, since it has the largest index
Yahoo Search is the second most popular keyword search engine
Bing may provide results if the other two don't work
Exalead is an excellent choice and makes a change from the big 3

Index or Directory based search engines
These search engines arrange data in hierachies from broad to narrow. Good if you need an overview of a subject or you're not entirely sure of what you want.
Yahoo Directory provides 14 main categories
Google Directory provides access to 16 main categories
Virtual libraries from Pinakes. Drill down for the content/sites you need
The Open Directory Project provides access to 16 main categories

Multi or Meta search engines
These search engines are useful if you need to run a comprehensive search quickly across a number of different engines, to compare results or to suggest search engines that you may not have tried before. The majority do a Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask search (GYMA, or GYM search depending), but there are differences.

Browsys 18 search engine options. Formerly intelways
Fasteagle dozens of resources
Ixquick has a nunber of UK based engines in its collection
Izito 6+ standard free text search engines used
Joongel 10 engines in multiple categories
Kedrix GYMA search engine
Mamma been around for ever, good reputation
Nginer covers various types of search and engines. Framed results
Scour GYM search, + vote and comment on results
Search!o wide variety of different engines
Searchboth Compare 2 search engines at once, eight options
Sputtr has 9 different options
Symbaloo visual and multi engine, add your own engines as well.
Trovando is a first rate choice and a personal favourite. 33 options
Whonu? Wide variety of resources, lots of options, impressive
Zuula 11 different search engine options

Visual results search engines
Rather than a simple textual list of results some search engines will provide content in a visual format. This is great if you want a change, or to view results differently. These engines also appeal to students and children.

Allplus uses a cluster graph
Cluuz provides network results
Grokker provides an outline and a map view. May have died (Feb 2010)
Kartoo has now closed.
oSkope uses Amazon, ebay and Flickr images displayed as thumbnails
Quintura is an engine offering a tag cloud based on results
RedZ provides an arc of webpages you can flick through
searchCrystal has now closed
Search-cube uses a cube of thumbnails
SearchMe has now closed
TouchGraph for Google
Ujiko has now closed
Viewzi uses a tile approach
WebBrain displays a visual representation above, and links below

Category search engines

Some search engines will create categories for you to narrow or expand your search criteria. This is good if you don't want to think, or need some help in areas that you don't know that well.

Ask suggests different categories
Carrot Clustering is a newish engine which provides options
Clusty suggests narrower topics to search under
Exalead has related term suggestions and other methods of narrowing your results
Gigablast provides some suggested terms/phrases
Google sets creates terms from a few examples
iZito provides topics to narrow a search
Zapmeta gives users basic options to narrow searches

Blended results

There are some search engines that will try and blend a variety of results onto one page for you - websites, news, video, images and so on. Good for an overall view of a subject area. Unfortunately there are not very many of them!

Allplus for clusters, web results, news, images, video
MSE360 Blogs, web pages, wikipedia, images all on one page