Meta Search Engine Defintion: A search engine that queries other search engines and then combines the results that are received from all. In effect, the user is not using just one search engine but a combination of many search engines at once to optimize Web searching.
I was thinking of doing a Google Interface to make power browsing available to anyone who’s new to Internet Marketing, but after some research I found that Soople that does exactly what I intended to create. It does need a face-lift and I might still create my project if I have some free time, but in the meantime I was wondering about what other search engines or meta search engines there are that either I didn’t know of at the time or my visitors would appreciate.

So here is a list of 7 Meta Search Engines You might not know about.

1. Soovle

Soovle has a very cool interface where in a single page you can get a variety of search engines. When placing a search in Soovle you will get the auto completion search phrases for the respective search engine. It’s not official term but I like to call it the “Suggestion Engine”. Soovle can be a very powerful tool for doing keyword research. Soovle does not crawl the net - all services and their content are the property of the respective providers. The Search Engines/Provideers it utilizes are Google, Wikipedia, Yahoo, Ask, Answers, Amazon and YouTube.

All the ways to search…

Get Soovling.

2. Kedrix

Kedrix is a meta-search engine with a twist. Kedrix people take it seriously as a matter of fact they are trying to coin a new word “mearch” (a combination of the words meta and search). Kedrix returns results from Google, Yahoo, MSN Live and Ask in their respective tabs. It’s a good tool to combine SERPS from different search engines under one screen. I am not so sure about the “mearch” phrase but Kedrix is ok in my book for a meta search engine.

3. BrainBoost

BrainBoost is not your traditional search engine, it is more of an automated question-answering search engine. It’s quite easy and fun, you type in a question, any question, and instead of merely matching your search query in page text and titles like other search engines, BrainBoost in a way is a bit smarter. It sorts through the search results and extracts the answer (as best as it can) to your question.

Who is BonsaiJon?

4. Soople

Soople is a website created to give Google power search for people who are not familiar with Google. It offers all the functions of Google with a more simplified and attractive graphical interface. Google offers an array of commands such as site: to list all indexed pages of a site, links: to list all websites that are linking to a website, you can search within just one site and much much more. Soople has an easy to use interface to use these power search commands without having to knowing or memorizing the,

5. Clusty

Clusty is not just another meta search engine, yet it combines results from a variety of different search engines and websites, it also adds a bit of extra search engine goodness in the mix by giving you clustered results. Basically, Clusty uses clusters to help your search become better, helping you cast your net wider, and sometimes coming up with search queries that you might not have thought of without the clustering feature.

6. Dogpile

Dogpile is a meta search engine (a site that get search results from multiple search engines and directories and combines them for the users. Dogpile presents the search results in a vertical search format and it’s technology doesn’t return duplicate results. Currently DogPile utilizes the search power of Google, Yahoo, MSN Live, Miva, LookSmart and about.

“Search more engines, get the best results from more of the Web and do it all easily. That’s what metasearch is all about!”

DogPile donates a portion of their income to the ASPCA (American Society of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals). At the time of writing they have donated almost $90K, their target is a million.

7. KartOO Visual Search Engine

KartOO is a metasearch engine with visual display interfaces. When you click on OK, KartOO launches the query to a set of search engines, gathers the results, compiles them and represents them in a series of interactive maps through a proprietary algorithm. Kartoo revisits meta-searching with an advanced twist: a visual map of the search results. When a user places a search the User is offered a flash-based word map of the results.

Hovering over a result will indicate, by connecting lines, related results. On the same page, the left pane of the window will offer text detail and a home-page preview of the highlighted item. On the right, there is a space for “Sponsored” content related to the search. Back in the day KartOO was dubbed the cool search engine, it looks cool, but may be tiring for some. The design is kind of old fashioned, maybe they can spice it up with a bit of web2.0 design.

I really hope you found this interesting and if you know of any other meta search engines like Gigablast (which I don’t like at all) please let me know.

Tagged as: meta search engines, Search Engines, unpopular search engines