Some, for example, do not gather data coded as a meta tag. Others may collect a limited number of words per page. Regardless of the data actually collected, indexes have no means for identifying relationships. Moreover, because no engine collects data from every Web page, researchers have no means for searching the entire Web. In addition to databases and engines, the Web offers search tools like meta searchers and directories .
Directories is merely another way to describe a subject index or catalog.
Meta searchers, however, comprise a new type of finding aid. Rather than crawling the Web and creating their own indexes, meta searchers pass a query to several engines simultaneously. On the surface, it appears as though the searcher queries a large portion of the Web. But because the meta searchers must perform quickly, they truncate queries frequently searching just a portion of an engine's index and returning only top-ranked hits. Our Terms and Conditions .