It is more comprehensive than any other search engine. When you want to find as much as possible on a specific name, or topic, this is the site to use. It uses a full-text index. Queries can be refined using Boolean or similar operators. Newsgroups are included, but not FTP and Gopher sites.
Descriptions display with results.
There is nothing else like it for searching the Web. Lycos Lycos was created by Carnegie Mellon University. It is one of the oldest search sites on the Web. It delivers comprehensive results, similar to Alta Vista, sometimes overwhelming in size. Descriptions display with results, based not on full text, but rather abstracts based mainly on headers, titles, links and the first few words of key paragraphs.