Search the top engines in one click

Learn how to search the top engines in one click by using a meta-search engine.

To search the top engines in one click you first need to know which are the top engines. By far the greatest volume of searches go through:

• Google
• Yahoo
• MSN
• Ask

... in that order. There are, of course, many other search engines and you need to consider if they are relevant to your particular needs.

If you want to search your selection of top engines in one click, you need to find a meta-search engine. A meta-search engine use other search engines to perform searches for it. But you should be looking for more than 'one-click' simplicity. Other things to consider are:

• Does the meta-search engine remove duplicate results? 
• Does it list the results in a way that suits you?
• Does it offer all your search engines, or at least a large number of them.

You might need to mix and match a selection of meta-search engines and search engines to achieve your requirements. Of course, this will then not be a one-click solution. But at least it will be an 'as few clicks as possible' solution. Here are some meta search engines that might suit your needs:

• Dogpile
• Meta-crawler
• Mamma
• Inference Finder
• Ixquick
• Metaeureka

Dogpile is the most popular meta-search engine, and provides you with all the best search engines piled into one. UK readers might like to note that the name "Dogpile" was obtained from a term used in US sports to describe players piling on top of one another in celebration of a victory. In the UK it has more unfortunate connotation, referring to the pile of dog **** that owners should always pick up in the park and dispose of properly. 

Companies should remember that the UK and US are often, as Winston Churchill said, two countries separated by one language, and choose their company names carefully.

That is, it gives you Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask, Therefore, unless you have specialised needs, it may give you a one click solution. You simply type your term into the Dogpile search box and click "go fetch". The search terms returned indicate which search engines the term was found in. 

Metacrawler also gives you the top four engines, but gives you the added capability of choosing to search the Looksmart and About engines. Its interface is slightly chunkier than Dogpile's, so if you only want the top four engines Dogpile is best.

Mamma provides results from many different search engines and directories, but not the top three. For instance you get results from Ask, Wisenut, Business.com, Gigablast, Entireweb and Open-Directory. This makes it a great second-click search engine, after meta-crawler, if you want to do a really wide search.

Another wide search option would involve starting with Metaeureka. It searches 7search, About, AOL, Ask , Dmoz, Epilot, FindWhat, MSN, Netscape, Overture, Wisenut, and Yahoo. the only one of the big four missing is Google. So another "two click solution" would be Metacrawler and Meta Eureka. Notice that Mamma and Metaeureka do not have much overlap. A three click very wide search could include Metacrawler, Metaeureka and Mamma.

In a nutshell:

• Search the top engines in one click, or the fewest number of clicks, by using the engine(s) and/or meta-search engine(s) that best satisfy your needs.