Searching beyond Google and Yahoo: nine online search engines compared

Name A9 AltaVista AOL Search Ask Jeeves Google LookSmart Lycos MSN Search Yahoo Search
Rating 6.7 5.7 6.3 6.3 8 5 5.3 6 7.7
Searches
News x1 x x x x   x x x
Local x   x x x   x x x
  Maps x   x x x   x   x
  Driving directions x   x x x   x   x
Audio   x x       x x7 x
Video   x x       x   x
  Video thumbnails   x x4           x
Images x x x x x   x x x
Discussions/blogs x       x   x10    
Reference x     x5       x8  
Periodicals           x      
Shopping x2   x x x   x x x
People       x x   x   x
Family-safe filter x x x x x x x x x
Features
Toolbar x x x x x     x x
  Pop-up blocker   x x x x     x x
  Bookmarks x     x6         x
Desktop search       x x     x x
Search history x   x x          
Cached pages x     x x     x x
Related pages   x x x x       x
Page viewer               x  
Site preview       x          
Translation   x     x        
Movie listings x3   x x x     x x
Diary x                
Site rank info x                
Page archiving tool           x      
Real-time search suggestions     x            
Help section/FAQs x x x x x x9 x x x
Wireless/SMS         x       x
Red = one-of-a-kind feature 
1 New York Times only
2 Amazon book search only
3 Movie info, but no local showtimes
4 AOL Broadband results only
5 Dictionary search
6 Saved search results
7 MSN Music search
8 Encarta (for pay)
9 Help for FindArticles only
10 Searches Web forums and discussions


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