MetaCrawler -- What have you done for me lately?
Written: Mar 16 '01 (Updated Mar 23 '01)
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The Bottom Line
Metacrawler could have been a search contender. It came out strong, but there has been little development here for the last few years...use Google.
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| Full Review |
Metacrawler is a good meta search tool.
But it's another great example of what happens to a company or site that tries to be too much to too many people.
It started out as a grad student project at the University of Washington - the first search engine that ran searches for you concurrently at all the other search sites (hotbot, lycos, alta vista, webcrawler, etc.). It was purchased by Go2Net in early 1996 and added to their webportal business.
It soon became a lot harder to find what you were looking for, as the metacrawler interface was absorbed into the Go2Net portal. Now, after a great redesign, you can again use the Metacrawler interface to find what you want.
Here's how you use it.
Go to the search page and enter a phrase into the box -- let's use a search term of "Joe Pisarcik" as an example. (for the unitiated --Pisarcik was the Giants quarterback who lost a game in the last few seconds by fumbling a snap). Hit search.
Metacrawler comes back from searching all the major engines with these top four results:
Excite: Sunday, August 13, 2000 By VINNY DiTRANI
Staff Writer Had it been a regular-season game, Giants rookie Jack Golden would have gone down with Joe Pisarcik and Jim Marshall in the annals of NFL blockhead plays.
1000, http://www.bergen.com/giants/jintspx1320000813.htm (AltaVista, Excite) | More Like This
Fighting in the stands. Are you less likely to attend a Detroit Lions game because of fighting in the stands? Standings, scheds...
539, http://www.detnews.com/1997/lions/9710/19/index.htm (AltaVista) | More Like This
Home Who is Jaws? Jaws Motivates Business Ventures All about Football RJ Golf Classic JAWS Returns to Tampa Bay. and will split his time with the Eagles. Ron is back in the New Jersey Golf Business. Check Presentation
539, http://www.ronjaws.com/ (MetaCatalog)
Giants fumbled away a victory in '78
From the Journal Sentinel The University of Wisconsin's costly fumble Saturday against Northwestern is reminiscent of a play that, in New York Giants lore, is known simply as "The Fumble."
431, http://www.jsonline.com/badger/arc/fb/fumble1019.html (Excite) | More Like This
As you can see, the fourth article contains what we were looking for, the others simply make passing reference to Pisarcik, and aren't great returns. The interesting thing that Metacrawler does for users is that it allows you to filter the results that it comes back with by clicking MORE LIKE THIS. This allows you to get more returns that interest you...and get closer to your answer.
All in all, Metacrawler is a solid engine, but Google has done them far better -- use Google.
Recommended:
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About the Author
Member: Brian H
Location: Northeast
Reviews written: 297
Trusted by: 108 members
About Me: I'm an Internet GEEK.
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