The search goes on ...

2:48pm Thursday 15th February 2001

Search engines are designed to take the hard work out of finding information on the web but all too often they suggest irrelevant (but often quite funny) sites, a waste of valuable on-line time. Of course, some are better than others so WebWatch put the magnificent seven to the test, looking for the low-down on some local landmarks. They are listed in order of preference.

www.dogpile.com is the king of search engines as it searches about 15 other engines including Looksmart, GoTo.com, Altavista and Google, on your behalf and lists the top ten results for each. It is almost guaranteed to find what you are looking for along with sAme amusing sites you weren't. Dogpile made light work searching for Beckenham Place Park with GoTo.com finding the Lewisham Council website and Altavista getting a direct hit with a site dedicated to the place.

www.google.co.uk is purely a search engine, no links to news, no joke of the day, no weather or star signs. Once you've entered the keywords, pressing I Am Feeling Lucky takes you straight to a relevant page, bypassing lists of websites. For “News Shopper” it opened your favourite paper's homepage.

www.lycos.co.uk gives you the option of searchingA UK and Ireland sites or the rest of the world. I gave it the task of fetching sites about the Cutty Sark in Greenwich and Lycos delivered. Number one result was the Greenwich Tourist Information site, specifically the Cutty Sark page and number two was Cuttysark.co.uk. Can't argue with that!

www.uk.altavista.com was given the keyword “kite flying Blackheath” and lo and behold the first site in the results was about the last year's Blackheath Kite Flying Festival. The rest of the results were mostly relevant with the fourth entry being about Blackheath.

www.yahoo.co.uk was once one of the first places you'd turn to but not any more. It drew a blank when searching for the words News Shopper. I gave is a second chance with Crossness Engines' and it came back with the website of the voluntary organisation which keeps the Thamesmead historical buildings going. The other results were relevant.

www.excite.com was given the task of searching for Beckenham Place Park and it came up with several sites about Beckenham Tennis Club. In fact the first entry was a car-hire firm and further down the list Langley Park Boys School Physics Group but zero about the park which would leave you with the impression there is nothing on the web about it.

www.askjeeves.co.uk is a cute idea. However, in practice it has never provided any useful or relevant answers to any question I've ever asked. I asked: Where can I find vegetarian food in Dartford' and it came back with where can I find a vegetarian recipe for American-style Granola.'

Related Links

http://www.dogpile.com

http://www.google.co.uk

http://www.lycos.co.uk

Editor's Choice