DOGPILE is an example of a metasearch engine.

Reproduced with permission from InfoSpace, Inc.

Metasearch engines search the databases of several search engines all at once (e.g., Google, Altavista, and Yahoo). They generally eliminate the duplicate results and present them in categories, such as chronology, subject, or search engine. Most metasearch engines also offer advanced search options.

Best for an overview of your topic on the Web, seeing which search engines will produce the best results, and for simple searches.

Results from a metasearch can be overwhelming if the search is on a common topic.

Other metasearch engines: ProFusion.com, SurfWax.com, Vivisimo.com, Webcrawler.com, and MetaCrawler.com