Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know of the major search engines like Google or Yahoo. But did you know that there are many other smaller or niche search engines out there that can offer you unique help? Let’s take a look at some of these and get some insight into how they can be of benefit.
Mooter Search
Developed in Australia, Mooter takes a different approach to showing results for your queries. Instead of delivering you “flat” search engine result pages with lists and lists of results, Mooter delivers its results in cluster categories. For instance, if you type the word “labrador” you will see clusters of categories related to your term into which you can drill: organization, retrievers, Canada, map, band, and nature. If these aren’t the results you are looking for you can simply click on the “next clusters” link.
Mooter is beneficial because unlike many search engines, you don’t have to perpetually backtrack and/or type in different sets of key terms in order to reach the result you want in the first place.
Girafa
Girafa, which boasts that it “visualizes the Web,” shows its users more than the average list of results. Enter the term “marketing” into its Visual Search and not only will various related sites show up, but so will screenshots of each site. Talk about making a split second judgement! Now if you like the look of one site over another, you might just head there first…and buy from them!
Thumbshots.net
Part of the Open Directory Project, Thumbshots.net is similar to Girafa, though Thumbshots.net starts with a directory of categories so there are two ways to search. Once you enter your search query you will see thumbshots on the left side of the screen followed by the title, description, and url of the site.
WiseNut
WiseNut, developed by LookSmart, is simple and easy to use. WiseGuide is like Mooter because it clusters your search into different categories like a directory but on the same first page, it will also display “normal” flat search listings.
Moreover, you can actually Sneak-a-Peek into each site result. Under each normal search listing you will find a description of the site followed by a url and the Sneak-a-Peak hyperlink. If you click on this a large screenshot will appear directly under the listing after choosing this option. You may then simply close it once you are done.
iBoogie
iBoogie clusters its results too, but it displays them like the Windows Explorer screen: you see the flat search listings on the right-hand side while on the left you see clusters you can research by.
Like some of the larger search engines, iBoogie allows you to search for your term from just one search bar by other means: MP3/Audio, Images, Video, Directory or Advanced.
ProFusion
An extremely powerful meta search engine, ProFusion combines search results across multiple engines. What’s even better is that it provides you with the option to limit your search to include specific categories such as career, entertainment, government, etc. There are 22 categories in all and each one of them has a vast number of subcategories from which to explore. In other words, you can search sites for very targeted content all in one query.
PicsearchPicsearch searches solely for images related to your key term/s rather than sites. Plug in the term “Johns Hopkins” and you will encounter various images of the school, affiliated magazines, hospitals, family vacation photos, etc. Once you choose a particular image you can find out the url source of the image as well as file size, file type, and image size.
Picsearch is family friendly; all offensive material is filtered out by advanced filtering systems.
Extremely Unique Search Engines
We’ve listed several unique and different search engines, but being that it’s the Internet, there are many, many more out there.
Beef up your IT skills by doing tutorials found at FindTutorials.com. Need to locate individual articles from free magazines? Use MagPortal.com. You can even find radio stations in any given area as well as their accompanying web sites on Radio-Locator.
On your next foray into web search, why not test one of these search engines out for size?! They may even be of more use than say, Google??! ;->
Related Links:
WebAdvantage.net Related Articles:
Localized Search - Searching by Geography
back to topWeb Ad.vantage is a full-service online marketing company with core competencies in search engine optimization, PPC Campaign Management and online media buying. Visit our Internet Marketing Services section to learn more about our full range of services.
WebAdvantage.net encourages the reprinting of our marketing tips and articles. Before doing so, however, please contact us at for permission to do so. The company bio located above is required to accompany any reprint. Thank you in advance for your professional courtesy.
Pragmatic, professional advice with no hidden agenda.
Internet Business Forum
Subscribe to our blog RSS
Find out more hereThe Problem With Online Media Measurement Tools
In late February 2008, Google's stock dropped 4 percent in one day after comScore released data suggesting the search giant's click-through rate on paid search ads was... read more
Online Plagiarism: Not the Highest Form of Flattery
One of the biggest and perhaps most frustrating issues facing Web site owners is online plagiarism, which unfortunately runs rampant on the Web in the age of blogs and... read more
Observations: College Students & Social Media
Last night I sat on a panel at Towson University with five other Baltimore-area Internet entrepreneurs, all of us highly engaged in social media, speaking to a college... read more
