As usual, something significant event occurred earlier this week about which I was oblivious. That event was a day without Google, which occurred on Tuesday, June 12. The idea, as promoted by Alt Search Engines, was to go a day without using one of the major search engines — Google, Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, or Ask — and to use one of the many alternative search engines instead. Since I missed the occasion, I offer five alternative search engines for you take for a spin. All are listed on the Alt Search Engines site.
- Mahalo. This site is billed as “the world’s first human-powered search engine powered by an enthusiastic and energetic group of Guides. Our Guides spend their days searching, filtering out spam, and hand-crafting the best search results possible. If they haven’t yet built a search result, you can request that search result. You can also suggest links for any of our search results.”
- GigaBlast, an engine that’s been around since 2000.
- Twerq. This site is one of the advertisers on Alt Search Engines, and it now boasts 70 new features and enhancements. (How many enhancements can one make to a search engine?) The site, currently in beta, officially launches on June 20, and one lucky Twerq searcher could win a cool thousand bucks on that day.
- Scitopia, “the free federated search portal to the digital libraries of leading science and technology societies.” This one’s a keeper.
- knuru, a search engine that focuses on the business sector. “We like to call knuru a research engine,” proclaims the site’s about page. “Using short descriptive sentences, you can find deeply relevant business information from top-tier academic and institutional sources that you might not otherwise have access to.”
Andrew Careaga 