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Search Engine Chart || Meta-search engines || Subject lists and directories || (back to Search Engines summary page)

Search Engine	Google	Yahoo Search	Ask
Contents	www.google.com	search.yahoo.com	www.ask.com
Size	Several billion	Several billion	Several billion
Invisible Web	PDFs, MS Word, EXCEL, Powerpoint	PDFs, MS Word, EXCEL	PDFs
Other coverage	Images, blogs, newsgroups, directory, news	Images, blogs, directory, news	Images, blogs, news
Online help	help center	search help	help central
Searching
To require	+ (use only to require common & "stop" words)	+	not available
To exclude	-	-	-
Phrases	"santa cruz"	"santa cruz"	"santa cruz"
Stemming	no	no	no
Boolean	AND; OR available (must be capitalized in standard search mode)	AND, OR, AND NOT, NOT (all operators must be capitalized)	AND; OR (must be capitalized in standard search mode)
Boolean Default	Default: AND	Default: AND	Default: AND
Advanced    search	yes	yes	yes
Results
Order of results	Based on the number of other pages that link to each page, frequency, proximity, location on page	Based on relevancy	Based on relevancy
Other	Cached copies of pages available; results clustered by server; can search similar pages	Cached copies of pages available; can search related pages	Cached copies of pages available; Often provides narrowing & expanding categories
Special
Domain    searching	site: (e.g., site:gov, or site:ucsc.edu) inurl: (e.g., inurl:dental)	site: (e.g., site:gov, or site:ucsc.edu) inurl: (e.g., inurl:dental)	site: (e.g., site:gov, or site:ucsc.edu) inurl: (e.g., inurl:dental)
Language	Restrict to language; translation option	Restrict to language	Restrict to language
Other features	Find all pages that link to a site (link:); cached copies of pages available	Find all pages that link to a site (link:)	Broader & narrower topics often provided

Updated 7/06; Basic format based on Carol Leita's InfoPeople Search Engines Quick Guide.