Few topics get Web researchers more riled up than a good search engine debate. I got a range of responses to last week's column about the new HotBot, from people who loved it to those who despised it.
Eduardo Romero of the Nonprofit Roundtable of Greater Washington likes the new HotBot, but pointed out a disadvantage over using Google's own site: "Enjoyed your piece on Hotbot and agreed with much of what you wrote. Nostalgia was in the air as I remembered a much-used Hotbot in that pre-Google era. There was, however, a drawback using Google through Hotbot: no cache button available."
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Larry Phillips was less impressed. "My favorite site was the old Hotbot. Now it is just another front-end for existing search sites. Hotbot allowed me to access the advanced filter options on the home page. Every other search site requires me to go second and third pages to set basic filters including the number of results to show. The option of customizing the default search filters mitigates the problem, but only if I am willing to accept a cookie."
And Ran Bester wrote in to suggest another metasearch site, Search-22, which serves as a portal to scores of other engines -- though you can't easily switch back and forth between results as you can on HotBot. "I thought maybe you will like Search-22 as well. Search-22 is like HotBot in a way, because it lets you easily get the results from multiple engines. The big difference is that Search-22 gives you direct access to hundreds of search engines in different subjects and HotBot lets you search only 4. I hope that you like my gift…"
Of course I like the gift! Thanks to everyone who wrote in, and keep those tips and comments coming.
HAVE A GIFT FOR ME? What websites do you find most useful in your reporting? Send a brief note with your name, affiliation and a description of a favorite site to tips@cyberjournalist.net and I'll publish them in future columns.
