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Search Engines: FAST (alltheweb) The FAST (alltheweb) search engine offers a database nearly as large as Google's (over 2 billion pages in mid-2003) and, since it is based in Europe, can sometimes return sites that have not been indexed by the other search engines. Click here to open FAST in a new browser window. Enter a keyword 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 the search results may have been separated into four categories. Sponsored Results (sites that have paid for high placement in FAST's results list - rather like searching the Yellow Pages in the phone book), News stories from the FAST news database, Web Pages (the entire list of hits), Clusters (related sets of keywords) Similar Queries (similar keywords and phrases) and Multimedia Results (related pictures and videos). 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 Teoma. Are you seeing new results? Remember to add them to your growing collection of Bookmarks/Favorites. Now, click on the Advanced Search link to open what is one of the best advanced search interfaces available. Notice that you can add additional filters by clicking the + sign in the Word Filters section. FAST also offers an online tutorial which is found behind the Help button at the bottom of the screen. Be sure that you look for the Help files every time you encounter a new search engine since they offer specific information on how to best use the features of the search engine.
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