Search Engines by Search Features

Last updated Mar. 31, 2008.

Compare the search engines by their features. This page lists search features and the search engines that support them. Click on the search engine name for a link to that section of its reviews. See the Search Engine Feature Chart for a tabular presentation of search engines and their search features.

Separate Pages:

Languages Page including Language Limits, Online Translation, and Translated Search
Title Searching Showdown Page

Listed Features:
Defaults - Boolean - Proximity - Truncation - Case - Fields - Limits -File Types - Stop Words - Sorting - Family Filters

Defaults:: Default AND: Ask, Exalead, Gigablast, Google, Live Search, Yahoo! Search; Default OR: None

Boolean Capabilities and Constraints:: AND, OR, nesting: Exalead, Gigablast, Live Search, Yahoo! Search; NOT: Exalead, Live Search, Yahoo! Search; AND NOT: Gigablast, Yahoo! Search
OR and - only: Ask, Google; Operators must be in UPPER CASE: All; Dash - for NOT: Ask, Exalead, Gigablast, Google, Live Search, Yahoo! Search

Proximity: Phrase Search: Ask, Exalead, Gigablast, Google, Live Search, Yahoo! Search; NEAR: Exalead; NEAR/#: Exalead (replace # with a number to specific distance of proximity)

Truncation & Stemming:: Truncation: Exalead; Wildcard Word within a Phrase: Google, Yahoo! Search; Beginning Truncation: None (HotBot used to, but not as of Sept. 2002; NBCi, iWon, & Anzwers all used to, but all were defunct as of Fall 2000)

Case Sensitivity:: Yes: No search engine supports case sensitive searching any longer; No: Ask, Exalead, Gigablast, Google, Live Search, Yahoo!

Field searching: For more details on title searching, see the Title Searching Showdown Page: title: Gigablast, Live Search, Yahoo!; intitle: Ask, Exalead, Google, Live Search, Yahoo!; allintitle: Google
: url: Gigablast, Yahoo!; inurl: Ask, Exalead, Google, Yahoo!; allinurl: Google; link: Exalead, Gigablast, Google, Yahoo!; domain: Live Search; site: Ask, Exalead, Gigablast, Google, Live Search, Yahoo!; filetype: Ask, Exalead, Google, Live Search; originurlextension: Yahoo!
type: Gigablast
: ip: Gigablast; language: Exalead, Live Search; related: Google; others: Gigablast, Google, Live Search, Yahoo!

Limits:: Date (User Specified): Ask; Date (Specific Choices): Ask, Google, Live Search; Domain: Ask, Gigablast, Google, Live Search; Containing a media type: Live Search; Document Directory Depth: Live Search; Page Depth: Gone. Formerly at HotBot

File Types:: PDFs: Gigablast, Google, Live Search, Yahoo!; MS Word (.doc): Gigablast, Google, Live Search, Yahoo!; PowerPoint (.ppt): Gigablast, Google, Live Search, Yahoo!; Excel (.xls): Gigablast, Google, Live Search, Yahoo!; PostScript (.ps): Gigablast, Google, Yahoo! (using originurlextension:)

Stop Words:: No Stop Words (all words searched): Ask (if + used), Google (if + used or in phrase), Gigablast,; Common words not searched (stop words): Google (if + not used or not in a phrase), Live Search, Ask (if + not used or not in a phrase),
Stop words only if searched alone: Live Search; Stop words searchable with +: Ask, Google,

Sorting:: Sort by relevance scores: All; Clustering by site: Ask, Google, Gigablast,; Sort by date: None Gigablast (used to, no longer available as of Oct. 2003); Sort by size: Openfind (defunct)

Family Filters:: Gigablast; Google SafeSearch (available on the preferences page), is on by default for image searching; Live Search has a filter on by default with no way to turn it off; Yahoo! Search