Most people are lazy when it comes to searching, myself included in that statement. Most people do use Google and those that don't still use the term Google to mean search. But what I want to know is what other search engines are worth using and why? I could search on “best search engines”, But I would prefer hearing why others like a particular search engine other than Google?

Most people are lazy when it comes to searching, myself included in that statement. Most people do use Google and those that don't still use the term Google to mean search. But what I want to know is what other search engines are worth using and why? I could search on “best search engines”, But I would prefer hearing why others like a particular search engine other than Google?

I've tried every one of them - and NONE work better than Google for me. I especially like the Google 'advanced search' function because it always gives me what I'm looking for.

I've tried every one of them - and NONE work better than Google for me. I especially like the Google 'advanced search' function because it always gives me what I'm looking for.

That's a very good recommendation, but couldn't you get about the same results using Bing? If you always use Google and always find what you want why would you even care to try anything else? If that's the case you will be very biased in favor of Google before you test anything else.

That's a very good recommendation, but couldn't you get about the same results using Bing? If you always use Google and always find what you want why would you even care to try anything else? If that's the case you will be very biased in favor of Google before you test anything else.

Because I never say "always." ;) I keep trying the others now and again to see if they've improved and so far they still can't even do as well as Google - much less beat it. And Bing is one of THE worst of them all in my opinion.

I found this one the other day, but I haven't actually tried it yet. It's supposed to be a search engine for scientific info.

http://www.scirus.com/

Because I never say "always." ;) I keep trying the others now and again to see if they've improved and so far they still can't even do as well as Google - much less beat it. And Bing is one of THE worst of them all in my opinion.

Does it make any difference that Google has a reputation for keeping tabs on your search habits? I've also heard that they sell that information. Is that something you don't care about?

Hakia was once waved around as something "special" that was looming on the search engine horizon. But what was suggested as its potential disadvantage back then seems to be the same as what it is now: Doesn't promote itself enough. I tried it for bit, but Google had so many services that I was using for one reason or another at the time that I wandered back before giving it much of a satisfactory testing.

http://www.hakia.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakia

http://blog.hakia.com/

I found this one the other day, but I haven't actually tried it yet. It's supposed to be a search engine for scientific info.

http://www.scirus.com/

Very nice, I like it a lot, and will use it. Thanks for finding it.

My pleasure!

I've been using the internet since about 1993. Over that time I've seen search engines come and go and none of them even came close to the effectiveness of Google. It was a godsend when it arrived, and I soon retired the problematic piece of software I was using that returned results from multiple search engines (it was something like WebFerret, but not WebFerret; the name escapes me for now).

The trick these days is in knowing how to use Google effectively. I use Google's image search quite often to locate information about certain things quickly. Google groups is also very useful for tracking down hard to find information. Then there's Google scholar, Google shopping, Google blog search, Google news etc. Additionally, there's the advanced search which is incredible useful for filtering out unwanted results or returning specific types of results (such as documents of a certain type, or from a specific site (or even only from sites with certain characters in the URL), or from a particular period of time). More often that not I find myself customizing my searches in such ways, although I typically employ techniques such as those found here (http://www.google.com/help/refinesearch.html) and here (http://www.google.com/landing/searchtips/) as opposed to the advanced search form to save time. Finally, it's about understanding people. What do they write about, how do they phrase things, what are the common spelling mistakes? And there are still more tricks. Even still, a very significant portion of the internet (perhaps even most of it) is invisible to Google, so you can try resources such as those found here (http://www.pandia.com/powersearch/index.html), although even that doesn't cover everything.

Hakia was once waved around as something "special" that was looming on the search engine horizon. But what was suggested as its potential disadvantage back then seems to be the same as what it is now: Doesn't promote itself enough. I tried it for bit, but Google had so many services that I was using for one reason or another at the time that I wandered back before giving it much of a satisfactory testing.

http://www.hakia.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakia

http://blog.hakia.com/

You are right about Google promoting itself. It seems like every time you install a new program it also wants to install Google in your browser. To me that's a red flag. Google is a bully and doesn't take no for an answer. Sense it's a good product most people just give up fighting it. Being a good product doesn't mean they don't take advantage of you every chance they get.

Hakia was once waved around as something "special" that was looming on the search engine horizon. But what was suggested as its potential disadvantage back then seems to be the same as what it is now: Doesn't promote itself enough. I tried it for bit, but Google had so many services that I was using for one reason or another at the time that I wandered back before giving it much of a satisfactory testing.

http://www.hakia.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakia

http://blog.hakia.com/

I played with it and like it very much, I will use it and thank you.