Search Engines: alltheweb (formerly known as FAST)

The alltheweb search engine (formerly know as FAST and recently purchased by Yahoo!) offers a database nearly as large as Google's and can sometimes return sites that have not been indexed by the other search engines.

Click here to open alltheweb in a new browser window.

Enter a keyword like insects in the search box. Click the Search button (or hit the enter/return key on your keyboard) to initiate the search.

You will notice that there are several tabs across the top of the screen right above the results. This tabbed results feature which has started appearing on other search engines was introduced by FAST/alltheweb. Clicking on the News tab returns stories from the alltheweb news database. Clicking on the Pictures tab opens with results from the image database.

Spend some time exploring the different categories of results offered by the FAST search engine. Enter several of your own keywords and phrases and compare the results with what you found on Google and Ask. Are you seeing new results? Remember to add them to your growing collection of Bookmarks/Favorites.

Now, look around the screen and find the advanced search (they apparently do not like capital letters...) link. Click on the advanced search link to open the advanced search interface. Notice that you can add additional filters by clicking the + Add a filter link in the Word Filters section.

alltheweb also offers a query language guide on the advanced search screen (located up near the top of the advanced search screen as I update this page). Be sure that you look for the Help files like this every time you encounter a new search engine since they offer specific information on how to best use the features of the search engine.

Next: Other Search Engines