Meta search

Boy have my eyes been opened.

I thought all search engines were basically the same with the only recognisable difference of the branding.

After reading about Meta search at UC Berkeley and then doing a Goggle search on 'Meta search' I found that Meta search combines search engines to refine your search. I had no idea that searching in different search engines gave different results and that these results very rarely overlap. (Different Engines, Different Results, 2007)

These results are still only as good as the search engines used by the meta search tool, and if the "underlying databases aren't good" then the results from the search will still be poor and waste your time. (Vine, 2004)

I like the idea of using these combined searches engines to give better results through a meta search and have now been converted to using these tools but I would still classified this as 'fast' data. (Curtin University of Technology, n.d.)

Recognizing the difference between searching methods is half the battle to locating information on the web quickly—I'm surprised searching skills are not taught at school.

Reference:
Different Engines, Different Results. (2007). Retrieved April 20, 2009 from http://www.dogpile.com/rescuefctb/ws/metasearch/_iceUrlFlag=11?_IceUrl=true

Vine, R. (2004). Some Cautionary Notes on Vivisimo. Retrieved 20 April, 2009, from http://www.workingfaster.com/sitelines/archives/2004_07.html#000222

Curtin University of Technology (n.d.). The challenge of 'fast' data. Retrieved April, 20, 2009, from http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab=courses&url=%2Fbin%2Fcommon%2Fcourse.pl%3Fcourse_id%3D_14736_1%26sc%3D%252fwebapps%252fdiscussionboard%252fdo%252fmessage%253faction%253dlist_messages%2526conf_id%253d_23724_1%2526forum_id%253d_47938_1%2526message_id%253d_558527_1%2526thread_id%253d552622%2526nav%253ddiscussion_board%2526course_id%253d_14736_1