Webupon

The search engine wars have been on. The powers that be call themselves Google, Yahoo, Lycos and MSN. Google is synonymous with web search right now, dominating the mindscape and the internet landscape like no other search engine. if you ever think of searching beyond Google, take a dekko at these four refreshingly different search engines.

1. Topix

More of a news crawler but with an impressive engine and clean interface. It trawls the vast sources of news such as news sites and blogs and indexes them according to location and topic. It then builds location and subject tagged pages that are displayed between your search results. Any topic closely related to your search is listed according to relevance.

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More, a handy graph displays the frequency of your search term in an interactive graph. Clicking on the graph filters the results by the date range clicked. Topix generates a different kind of a result page. It takes in information from a variety of channels like news, blogs, advertising, sports, weather, politics and puts it all together like your very own local newspaper in real time. If you are interested in current affairs and news then Topix is the way to go.

2. Rollyo

It is a tool that lets you create your own customized search engine. It runs on top of the Yahoo engine and lets you “roll your searches.” You create a “searchroll” which is basically a list of about 25 sites you trust and find useful.

The search is limited within these sites. You categorize your searchroll according to subject. For example you create a searchroll of 25 health related sites. Any health related query will be sourced through these 25 sites. So in a way you have your own personal search engine by narrowing down your search to sites you know and trust. Searchrolls which are made public by users are also available for use.

3. Grokker

‘Grok’ or “Groking” is the action phrase. This is a “visual search engine”. Enter a search query and the output gives you an applet with a map view. The map is an assemblage of information arranged in circles or clusters. You can zoon or “grok” into the circles for more detailed information. Of course for the more fastidious a detailed list view is also provided.

The search engine collates information from three sources, Yahoo!, Wikipedia, and Amazon Books. For those interested in a more visually interactive look, Grokker is an option to click for.

4. Clusty
   

Doesn’t it sound like “trusty”? The erstwhile Vivisimo search engine is a “metasearch engine” collecting results from several other search engines. It has a clean minimal interface and is fast. Clusty presents the results of any search in “clusters”. Key in “Obama” for example and on a left hand pane you will get the possible clusters like – Clinton, presidential candidate, photos, election, issues, Barack Obama News etc. Clicking on any cluster will give you a detailed listing.

A helpful “remix” button reveals other submerged relevant topics. You can arrange the results by other combinations like sources or sections (categories). So instead of delivering millions of search results in one long list, the search engine groups similar results together into clusters for a more narrowed down search.

So if you Google is becoming a bit of an eyesore for now, take these four wacky search engines for a spin and search for yourself. They won’t answer the eternal “Does God exists?” question but they just might reveal something more down to earth.