Again, useful pieces of information. If I am searching for current information there is no point in looking at a page which was last updated 6 months ago. Similarly, it is useful to know how big a page is going to be before going to it. It is a shame that more engines have not incorporated these features. Since this is an article about UK databases, I wanted to make sure that it was possible to limit searches to just the UK, but also if they could be expanded out to Ireland, Europe or the rest of the world.
Advanced search Is there an option to do an advanced search at the site.
Portal Does the site have a variety of other options, such as free email, chat facilities, personalised pages and so on. Number of hits returned This should be expanded out to 'per page'. Most search engines as a default provide you with ten references, and you then have to click to get the next ten and so on. Some do however give you a little more flexibility in formatting the screen according to your own wishes. The two engines that came head and shoulders above the rest wre AltaVista and Lycos.