This makes separating the wheat from the chaff a bit easier. They claim to have the largest database and the fewest dead links. HotBot claims to be the most comprehensive and most current index. Seems to be part of Lycos. Savvy Search is a metaseach engine that covers the major search engines and guides.
Switchboard is the place.
EZ-Find at the River allows you to search several of the biggest search engines, one at a time, without retyping between them. Another place to check is Starting Point with a search engine plus categorized hotlists. Everything you need to work the web.