Saturday, January 28, 2017

Metasearchers: a Definition

Note: If as you read through these sections, you feel a bit overwhelmed, don't worry. That is perfectly normal. If all this information doesn't make sense to you yet, it will as you continue reading. We promise!

Okay, here it is: 

As the prefix “meta” suggests, it goes beyond what an ordinary search engine does and it goes 
“beyond” by searching the multiple sets of individual search engines simultaneously. Metasearch engines let you know which engines are retrieving the best results for you in your search.


Huh? I know! Here’s a breakdown:

These engines give you the result in either a single list or multiple lists. Most give you the single list which, like its name suggests, is just one list with no duplicate entries. The multiple lists gives you multiple results displayed in separate lists according to the search engine.
The main thing to understand here is the Pros and Cons. 


The biggest pro is that these metasearch engines are super-fast.  Which is what we all want...Awesome! Right? Well, this is too good to be true because the major con in relation to their speed is that the results it gives back can be hundreds and hundreds of hits and so you’re stuck trying to eliminate the good sources from the bad. No Bueno!



Examples of these engines are Dogpile and Mamma.

No comments:

Post a Comment