New Age Web Marketing | Client & SEO Blog

Thursday, March 31, 2005

Topic Hunter - Search Over 200 Sites

Today I ran across a wonderful search site called Topic Hunter that allows you to search over 200 different web site. While you can only search one site at a time, it allows you to quickly search different sites from a single search box, and it's even supposed to open the results in a new tab (or a new window, if you're not savy enough to use Firefox).

Enter your query into the search box and then click on the logo of the engine you want to use. The main screen allows you to search Google, MSN, Looksmart, IceRocket, Yahoo, Teoma, Wisenut and Gigablast... and by clicking the More General Searches -> link, you can load up 2 more screens of 8 engines each.

By mousing over each engine/site you are presented with a hover box that gives you more information about it. Of course you can just try them, but once you get past the first screen you no doubt will not recognize the names of all of the search engines, so this information is good to get the background on each site.

Below the logos are "Other Topic Specific Resources" and here is where this tool shines. Here are all of the categories you can search on:

Metasearch, Answer Searching, News, Blogs, RSS, Pay Per Click, Reference, Invisible Web, Xtra Google, Directories, Image Search, Audio/Video, Movies, Computers, Auctions, Shopping, Kids, Financial/Business, Science, Government, Medical, Legal

With the exception of "kids" which offers 16 places to search, every other catgegory offers 8 of the best places to find the detailed information you are seeking.

My only complaint, and it could just be my system and the extentions I have installed, is that "open in new tab" actually opened a whole new instance of Firefox instead of a new tab. I tried a second computer in my office and it acted the same way. Hardly a big deal though and it takes nothing away from the usefulness of this web site. Actually, for comparing results having them load in new window makes more sense - though options for a new tab OR a new window might be better for some users.

Visit Topic Hunter Today!