Project 15: Search Engines

There are many search engines out in the big wide world of the internet, and believe it or not, there are more search engines than just Google! The goal of this project is to expand our searching options and discover different ways to find information than just using Google. Here, I will provide a summary of eight search engines and links to each so that you can explore them and learn more about them for yourself. Click the the search engine name above the review to see it for yourself.

Ask.com
Formerly known as Ask Jeeves, Ask.com is a search engine that has fallen down in the ranks of search engines with the rise of Google. Ask.com is about the same as Google, except you can usually find slightly different sources that Google doesn't pull up. Google usually finds the most popular sources when you search for things, and Ask.com gives you the 100th page Google sources without having to search through 100 pages of sources. When you pull up their website, they usually want you to "ask" something and when you hit the "answer" button, it gives you what it has found. It also has these really cool, and relevant to history and current events, question of the day.

Kayak
Kayak is the travel search engine that any vacationer wants to know about. This search engine takes the destination you are searching for, and "compares hundreds of travel site at once" saving you up to 25% off guaranteed. This is what they advertise on their home page. From searching hotels and "flights on this site just to get an idea of the site, it proves to be more useful than other search engines that show you every travel site, leaving you on your own to navigate the maze of prices on your own. Kayak does all of that work for you.

Picsearch
Picsearch is a search engine similar to Google images, that allows you search the internet for strictly pictures. It allows over 3 billion images to search through, which also provide links to websites they are located on. Again, this is similar to Google images, except it isn't Google images. I particularly am fond of how you don't have to worry about accidentally searching in the non-image web search bar. It's only pictures.

WolframAlpha
WolframAlpha is not only a useful search engine that acts as an updated almanac, but is also a math nerd's best friend. WolframAlpha is my favorite of all the search engines, mainly because it functions as a calculator that can solve a broad spectrum of problems. It derives and integrates functions. It plots lines and planes in 2D and 3D spaces. It will tell you what the temperature is in Toronto (that is, if you want to know the temperature in Toronto). If what your searching has a number attached to it, then there is a good chance that WolframAlpha knows how to give you the answer that you are searching for.

Yahoo!
Yahoo! search engine is the second largest search engine on the world wide web. It is popular for its email services, its simple to use search bar, and its access to the world today. Yahoo! provides articles to Hot Topics in the news, celebrity gossip, and location services. Its operations are similar to Google, where you type in what you want to know and it gives you sources to look for what you are trying to find.

Bing
Bing is another search engine that is similar to Yahoo! and Google. Bing is known for being owned by Microsoft, and for filtering search results so that you don't see unrelated information. It provides you with several types of sources such as videos, pictures, articles, and websites when you search a topic. I do not often use Bing; however, it does prove to be useful when meshing sources.

IceRocket
IceRocket is a search engine that I am sure everyone in EDM310 is probably thankful for. It is a search engine that searches blogs, Twitter, and Facebook. It searches the information to bring you the most recent posts related to what you searched. Their homepage shows recent searches, top searches, and trending items.

ChaCha
ChaCha is the question answerer. You can access ChaCha via text message, or on the internet. You ask it a question, and a person from ChaCha responds with an answer to your question. It was very popular to use when I was in high school; however, reasons for usage were mainly just to cheat on graded assignments. I think it is cool how it is accessible without getting on the internet. It gives you information by simply just sending the search engine a question.