Search tools you haven't tried

Ask.com, Vivisimo, and WiseNut offer options for finding, organizing, and displaying the websites you're looking for.

By Melissa Thibault and David Walbert

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People get attached to their search tools. Some people try out different search engines and settle on the one that seems to do the best job; others stick with one long enough to get better at using it. While it makes sense to have a single search tool you can rely on most of the time, using only one tool can be limiting. Different search tools have different features, and it makes sense to have several in your “toolbox” for searching the Web. Three of the newer search tools are Ask.com, Vivisimo, and WiseNut, and each has unique features that you may find useful.

Ask.com

Ask.com (http://www.ask.com/) provides excellent search results with websites highly relevant to the search string. To ensure relevance, Ask.com uses Subject-Specific Popularity, which ranks a website based in part on the number of same-subject pages that reference it, not just on its general popularity. Ask.com also offers built-in spell check, easy phrase searching (just click the box that says “find this phrase”), and an advanced search option. Users of Internet Explorer can download a Ask.com search bar for their browser that keeps the search feature and an online dictionary always available.

Narrow Your Search, Expand Your Search, and Related Names are Ask.com’s defining distinction. To the right of the list of results, you’ll find the heading Narrow Your Search. Under this heading are suggestions for topics and word choice that may focus your search and narrow your results. Simply click on the topic that most closely describes what you’re looking for and you will generate a new, more focused results list. So, for example, a search for "jazz music" returns over two million results with the option to refine by selecting "history of jazz, " "jazz music reviews, " or "jazz musicians" — all topics within the original search, jazz music, but each will return a very different list of results. By using Ask.com’s Narrow Your Search suggestions multiple times, it is possible to get a short list of very useful websites with just a few clicks. Just below Narrow Your Search in the right-hand column, you’ll see Expand Your Search, related search terms that offer searches on a related topic, in this case, Blues Music or Harlem Renaissance. Finally, Related Names lists proper names most often found in sites related to your search. So, the "jazz music" search lists Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday under Related Names. To create these lists of resources, Ask.com organizes websites using "naturally occurring communities" relevant to the subject of each search query.

Like most search tools, Ask.com accepts paid placement in their lists of results, but these are clearly labeled as sponsored links at the top of the Results list. For more information about the technology partnerships in search tools, visit the Search Engine Results Chart from Search Engine Watch.com.

Vivisimo

Vivisimo (http://vivisimo.com) is a meta-search engine, so every search you do is actually run on several other search engines. Results are annotated and labeled so you can see which search tool(s) found each website. Unlike some meta-search tools, which show you every website found by any search engine, Vivisimo uses these multiple searches to cull down its list of results to the sites that are found or ranked highest by the greatest number of websites. If you want to search a particular type of resource, a drop-down menu next to the search box provides options for where to search. The default is Search the Web, but you can also select resources such as Top News, eBay, FirstGov, or any of a dozen specific search engines. Results of these searches are displayed in the same unique Vivisimo interface.

Vivisimo offers several display options for viewing websites. If you click on the title of a website in the list of search results, you’ll see the site within the Vivisimo frame; the search tool’s banner, footer, and left-hand column will remain wrapped around the new page. We don’t usually like frames, but Vivisimo makes their frame really useful by providing options in the yellow footer bar. If you want to "break out" of the frame, you can use the links in the footer to open the page in a Full Window or New Window. New Window spawns a new browser window displaying the site you selected. Full window uses your current browser window and takes you out of the Vivisimo site; if you need to return to search results you’ll need to use the Back button on your browser. But you many not need to return to the list, because you can browse other websites in your search results with a drop-down menu in the footer. And another link in the footer will automatically bookmark the page for you. The Full Window and New Window options are also available next to each site’s title in the list of search results, along with an option to Preview the site. When you click Preview, a mini-window opens right in the list of search results, offering you a glimpse of the site without taking you away from your search results. Whether you like these options may be a matter of personal taste — and also browser choice. Preview is availble only in Internet Explorer — as is, oddly enough, Full Window, which means that if you use Netscape, Mozilla, or Safari, you can only view a website within the Vivisimo frame or in a new window. (We didn’t test Vivisimo on Opera.) One of the authors, who uses Apple’s new proprietary browser on his Mac, found this extremely annoying; the other uses Explorer, never noticed the problem, and loved having all the options. If you use Explorer, we think the display options are worth checking out.

The feature that really distinguishes Vivisimo, though, is results document clustering, the automatic organization of documents into groups or clusters. To the left of the list of results you’ll see outline of topics and subtopics related to your search query. A search for "jazz music" returns a list of just 207 sites in the main window, but you needn’t scroll through that list to find what you need. Using the Clustered Results outline you can expand related headings such as History of Jazz or Entertainment, Artists to navigate to the sites most useful to you. Vivisimo is focused upon providing their document clustering approach to knowledge management to large companies; web searching is just one aspect of their product. This is actually good for the average web searcher, though, because unlike other meta-search engines, Vivisimo shows few sponsored links; its listings are highly relevant, clustered entries. As a result, this meta-search tool provides an excellent way to utilize the best of the available search engines.

WiseNut

WiseNut (http://www.wisenut.com) returns relevant results in a clean list interface with no sidebars or outlines. Like Vivisimo’s Preview option, the Sneak-a-Peek link next to each result’s title opens the site a mini-window within the page of search results; also like Vivisimo’s Preview, this only works in Internet Explorer. WiseSearch, linked from the home page, is an advanced search that enables Boolean search operators and phrase searching.

The distinguishing feature of WiseNut is WiseGuide. This feature, which appears at the top of each page of search results, automatically generates categories related to the words in your query and notes how many of the results returned fit in each category. For general searches or for words with multiple meanings, this feature can help you quickly find just what you’re looking for; the categories will help focus your search with one click. To search within the results you’ve already generated, click the category that best matches your needs. You can use WiseGuide in two ways; don’t get them confused! If you want to search the new category instead of your original topic, click the search this link next to the category. WiseNut’s preferences also allow you to turn WiseGuide on or off, but we can’t imagine why you would turn off this feature.

Our search for "jazz music" returned 101 sites listed by category. Headings such as Sheet Music, Live Music, and Music Festivals appeared in the WiseGuide; there were no listings for Jazz Musicians or History of Jazz as there were in the Ask.com and Vivisimo searches. Depending upon the information you are seeking, however, this search tool may provide just the hit you’re hoping for.