There are comparison charts available, or you can read the search engines help section. Also, view the search strategies section of this tutorial to find out some useful search tips. Links Search engine watch, a guide to search engines. How the 24 major search engines work. They are great starting points and are good if you are interested in searching within a topic.
Subject directories vary in size.
Meta search engines tend not to display all the results they get from the search engine results they are searching in. Only the top 10-100 results are generally shown from each engine. For that reason, meta search engines are good for getting a broad idea of your subject area, but it is often more effective to use search engines to search for more specific information within your subject area. Links Search Engine Watch. Rather than typing keywords into a search box, you would type in a natural language query.