At'om on the Web in CyberSpace, "Search Engines" are used to find Home Pages which contain specific keywords. A Search Engine Page ( like this current page ) will have text areas where you place the cursor in the text area and type in keywords of interest to you; then click on the "Search" button and receive a list of Home Pages, from all over the Web, which contain your keywords.
For conveneince, this page provides immediate access to the Search Engine from Lycos, because of their interesting comparison chart.
However, the Alta Vista Search Engine, is brand new from Digital Equipement Corporation, and claims to be every bit as comprehensive as Lycos, but was not included in the comparison chart. Fortunately, there are other folks who are also Measuring the Growth of the Web.
On another hot front, the old WebCrawler has been acquired by America On-Line, and who knows what they will do with it. The WebCrawler spider logo has even started showing up in the AOL television ads.
Finally, eXcite is a new "navigation service" from Architext Software and claims to rival Yahoo. However, Yahoo continues to add sub-categories, so that the distinction between a Table of Contents and an Index is blurred beyond recognition.
A table of links is provided
to access most other Search Engines.
Alternatively, the following links provide
access to links for predefined categories.
Here is a table of all major Search Engines, in order of decreasing interest and scope. The top row of links will access pages which perform a search across several Search Engines, all at once.
Here are other Search Engine links which I have collected, but have not scrutinized.