Search Engine & Directory List

The following search engines/directories are listed because they are amongst the most popular search engines whose focus is UK businesses or sites that are of interest to people in the UK.

All The Web
Also known as FAST, this is one of the largest search indexes on the web. FAST's results are provided to many portals and sites, including Lycos and Hotbot.

AltaVista UK
UK version of AltaVista which offers the ability to search UK sites only or Worldwide. AltaVista was one of the first crawler type search engines having started in December 1995.

AOL Search
With the large numbers of people who use AOL as an ISP, AOL's search services are highly significant. The main listings come from Google.

Ask Jeeves UK
Ask Jeeves is designed so that users can ask questions in plain English.

Excite
One of the first crawler type search engines starting in 1995, Excite is now owned by Infospace and operates as a meta search engine drawing results from a wide range of sources including FAST.

Google
Google is a search engine that uses the link popularity of a website, amongst other techniques, to rank web sites within its directory. Google argues that the frequency of these links means that sites with the most links to them have been effectively endorsed by the other sites and should therefore be ranked higher.

Google UK
UK version of Google which offers the ability to search UK sites only or Worldwide.

HotBot
HotBot started in 1996 and was purchased by Lycos ut is operated as an independent search facility.

Hotbot UK
UK version of Hotbot which offers the ability to search UK sites only or Worldwide. Results come from FAST.

Look Smart
Look Smart is a human-compiled directory of web sites. Look Smart also provides directory results to MSN, Excite and other search engines and directories.

Look Smart UK
The Look Smart portal designed to produce results more significant to UK users.

Lycos
Lycos’s main listings come from the FAST.

Lycos UK
UK version of Lycos which offers the ability to search UK sites only or Worldwide.

MSN Search
Microsoft's MSN Search service is a directory of web sites produced by Look smart with results also from Overture.

MSN UK
The UK version of MSN designed to produce results more significant to UK users.

Overture
Formally known as GoTo, Overture sells its main listings on a per click basis which it says improves relevancy. The UK version of Overture designed to produce results more significant to UK users.

Overture UK
The UK version of Overture designed to produce results more significant to UK users.

UK Plus
UK Plus launched in 1997 as a directory featuring reviews of sites in the UK or relevant to people in the UK.

Yahoo
Yahoo is the oldest major web site directory, having launched in late 1994 and is considered by many to be the most popular search service.

Yahoo UK & Ireland
UK version of Yahoo which offers the ability to search UK sites only or Worldwide.

Please note the above search engine list is subject to change.