[an error occurred while processing this directive]

Search Engines by Search Features

Last updated Jul. 12, 2023.
by Greg R.

Compare the search engines by their features. This page lists search features and the search engines that support them. Click on the search engine name for a link to that section of its reviews. See the Search Engine Feature Chart for a tabular presentation of search engines and their search features.

NOTE: The new (2004) Yahoo! Search is not yet included on this page.

Listed Features:
Defaults - Boolean - Proximity - Truncation - Case - Fields - Limits -File Types - Stop Words - Sorting - Family Filters

Defaults:

Default AND: HotBot, Gigablast, Google, MSN Search, Teoma, WiseNut, Yahoo! Search

Default OR: None

Boolean Capabilities and Constraints:

AND, OR, nesting: Gigablast, HotBot, MSN Search, Yahoo! Search

NOT: HotBot, MSN Search, Yahoo! Search

AND NOT: Gigablast, Yahoo! Search
Operators must be in UPPER CASE: All

OR only: Google, Teoma [both must be OR in uppercase]

Implied Boolean (+, -): Gigablast

Dash - for NOT: HotBot, Gigablast, Google, MSN Search, Lycos, Teoma, WiseNut, Yahoo! Search

Proximity

Phrase Search: Gigablast, HotBot, Lycos, MSN Search, Teoma, WiseNut

NEAR: AltaVista

within: AltaVista Advanced

before: AltaVista Advanced

before near: AltaVista Advanced

after: AltaVista Advanced

after near: AltaVista Advanced

Truncation & Stemming:

Truncation: No major Web search engine has truncation or a wild card symbol anymore.

Wildcard Word within a Phrase: Google, Yahoo! Search

Automatic Truncation: Yahoo! Directory

Word Stemming: MSN Search, Google

Beginning Truncation: None (HotBot used to, but not as of Sept. 2002; NBCi, iWon, & Anzwers all used to, but was defunct as of Fall 2000)

Case Sensitivity:

Yes: AltaVista Advanced, AltaVista Simple if term is in quotes

Unusual mixed case only: HotBot, MSN Search

No: AltaVista Simple (unless in quotes), Gigablast, Google, Lycos, Teoma, WiseNut

Field searching: For more details on title searching, see the Title Searching Showdown Page

title: AltaVista, Gigablast, HotBot, Lycos, MSN Search

intitle: Google, Teoma

allintitle: Google

url: AltaVista, Gigablast, Lycos Advanced

inurl: Google, Teoma

allinurl: Google

link: AltaVista, Google, Gigablast, Lycos Advanced, MSN Search

host: AltaVista (same as site: at others)

ip: Gigablast

domain: HotBot, MSN Search

site: Gigablast, Google, Teoma, (use host: at AltaVista)

anchor: AltaVista

image: AltaVista

related: Google

others: AltaVista, Gigablast, Google, HotBot, MSN Search

Limits:

Date (User Specified): HotBot, Teoma

Date (Specific Choices): Google, HotBot, MSN Search, Teoma

Language: AltaVista, Google, HotBot, Lycos, MSN Search, Teoma, WiseNut

Domain: Gigablast, Google, HotBot, MSN Search, Lycos, Teoma

Containing a media type: HotBot, MSN Search

Document Directory Depth: MSN Search

File type: See below

Page Depth: Gone. Formerly at HotBot

File Types:

PDFs: Gigablast, Google, MSN Search, HotBot (Inktomi) includes PDFs but no limit

MS Word (.doc): Gigablast, Google, MSN Search, HotBot (Inktomi) includes DOCs but no limit

PowerPoint (.ppt): Gigablast, Google, MSN Search, HotBot (Inktomi) includes PPTs but no limit

Excel (.xls): Gigablast, Google, MSN Search, HotBot (Inktomi) includes PPTs but no limit

PostScript (.ps): Gigablast, Google

WordPerfect (.wpd): Google

Stop Words:

No Stop Words (all words searched): AltaVista Advanced, Google (if + used or in phrase), Gigablast, Lycos, Teoma (if + used)

Common words not searched (stop words): HotBot, Google (if + not used or not in a phrase), MSN Search, Lycos, Teoma (if + not used or not in a phrase), WiseNut (if + not used)
Stop words only if searched alone: HotBot, MSN Search

Stop words searchable with +: Google, Teoma, WiseNut

Sorting:

Sort by relevance: All

Sort by date: Gigablast (used to, no longer available as of Oct. 2003)

Sort by size: Openfind

Clustering by site: Google, Gigablast, HotBot, AltaVista, Teoma, WiseNut,

Family Filters:

Google SafeSearch (available on the preferences page), is on by default for image searching.

Lycos Search Guard (password setting available)

MSN Search has a filter on by default with no way to turn it off.

WiseNut has WiseWatch, an adult content filter which is off by default. It can be turned on in the preferences.

Yahoo! Search.

Used to have Family Filters:

iWon has none as of 7/01, but its Simple Search used to exclude sites which were "highly pornographic or offensive in nature." The Advanced Search did not have that limit.

Magellan used to have a Green Light content filter, which became defunct even before Magellan died

Excite had none as of 7/01, even before it ceased having its own database, but it used to offer an adult content filter at the bottom of their Advanced Search Page

AlltheWeb's "Offensive Content Reduction" filter used to be on by default.