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Metacrawler Review

By Dewey Garwood

If you’re looking to search the web without going to Mars, and get more bang for your buck (even if it is free), Metacrawler is a site to behold.  While it doesn’t have a fancy interface with a bunch of graphics, what you lose in flash it more than makes up for with content.  Also, with the ability to search over 50% of the web in one query, you don’t need to go anywhere else.

Databases: Metacrawler offers the following databases for search:

• Web: any web pages related to your search string
• Images: pictures and graphics
• Audio: any audio recordings from the web
• Video: any video on the web
• News: current events from around the world
• Yellow Pages: find a business with a web presence
• White Pages: look up a person.

Search:  First, since a metacrawler is a tool to search other search engines, you’re only as good as the engines you use.  Metacrawler uses the following search engines for results:

• Google.com
• Yahoo! Search
• MSN Search
• Ask
• About

Also, Metacrawler was designed more for the general public than someone working on a PhD.  Simply enter your search terms in the box and hit enter.  What this means, however, is there is very limited Boolean search capability with Metacrawler.  Yet, based on the design of the web interface to use for search, there really isn’t a need for it.  They providean option for limiting your search by choosing the “Exact phrase” option, or you can use the Advanced search function.  This will allow you the following options:

All Advanced Search Pages include:

• Qualify Your Search: this is your basic text search that allows you to specify that you find any or all of the words in your search, an exact phrase, or even words to exclude.
• Results Display: allows you to have the results displayed based on relevance or based on source.
• Search Filter: This option provides some protection from explicit content on the web.  You have the option of none (which shows everything), Moderate (which filters pictures and graphic content, but not Web based searches), and Heavy, which will catch as much as possible.  Moderate is the default setting.

Advanced Web Search:

• Language Filter: Allows you to choose from the following languages: Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish.
• Date: Limit any results for documents based on the date of publication.
• Domain Filter: Filter search results based on any generic ending (.com, .gov, .edu, .biz, etc.) or by a full domain name (abccompany.com).  You can either include or exclude the results for this attribute.

Advanced Image Search:

• Image Size: Provides for small, medium, and large image size
• Image Color: Color, Black & White, or both
• Image Format: JPEG, GIF, PGN

Advanced Audio & Video Search:

• Playing time: can filter on all recordings, less than one minute, or longer than one minute
• File Format: Real Player, Windows Media, or MP3

Advanced News Search:

• News Category: includes Top Stories, Business, Finance, Travel, Sports, and more
• News Location: Filter results based on World Regions, Countries, US States or US Cities
• News Source: AFP, AP, LA Times, NY Post, Forbes.Com, Canadian Press, Reuters, and BusinessWeek Online.
• Date: Search based on publication date, back to Jan 1, 1990.
• This search does NOT provide a filter for content.

   

There are no advanced options for the Yellow Pages or White Pages search options, however, you can enter a business type or name, a person’s last name or first name, and a location in any US State.

The White Pages search is actually pretty good, since I was able to find myself without having posted the information to their website.  (Some might see this as a bit of a security risk, but the info listed for me was out of date.)  If you do want people to be able to find you, they provide an option to add your own information.

Strengths: Metacrawler boasts the ability to search over 50% of the web using major search engines (this was confirmed by an independent consultant).  It also allows you to do the following:

·         See results from each search engine used without opening another page in your web browser.  This is something no other metacrawler provides (dogpile doesn’t allow you to see results from any one of the search engines, and info.com will open another tab in your browser).

• Provides an indication of which search engines a page was found on
• Provides quick results (usually)
• Provides a Popular Searches list in the lower left corner.
• Provides an option called MetaSpy.  This has two modes (filtered and unfiltered) which allows you to see what other people are searching on in real-time.  As the list of searches scrolls by, you can even click on the text of someone else’s search to see the results from that search.
• Focused on Web, News, and Yellow/White Pages
• Opens another tab to view search results, so you don’t lose your search and have to use the back button.

Weaknesses: 

• Metacrawler limits image results to 40 results per search.  (This can be a real problem when you’re looking for images from the Hubble Space Telescope).
• Metacrawler does not provide databases for jobs, blogs, shopping, or any other databases.
• Metacrawler does not provide a way to go to the search engines that it searches.
• Metacrawler places ads and sponsored results in with the non-sponsored results it returns, making it more likely that you will end up on a page that paid to be at the top of the list.

Overall, I think Metacrawler is one of, if not the, best metacrawler available currently.  The ability to see the results and click on them for each individual search engine without having another page open up makes it very easy to browse and compare results, and if you don’t care about comparing, you get a list of the top hits.  The most frustrating part of their results list is that images are limited to 40 hits.  This limitation isn’t present on audio, but those results are difficult to browse because of the format they are displayed in.  However, the display format is something that you would get used to as you use this metacrawler.  By providing the top hits from over 50% of the web, specific searches are sure to provide more of what you’re looking for in one location, and the MetaSpy function, while perhaps being a little frivolous, allows you to see what other people are searching for.  Who knows, perhaps they’re looking for the same thing you are.