Database

AltaVista

Excite

Google

HotBot

Lycos

Northern Light

Scope

Content Size

250M pages

250M pages & media objects

110M sites

50M pages

200M sites

Full-text

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Logic

Default word

OR

OR

AND

and

and

Boolean connectors

AND, AND NOT, NEAR

AND, AND NOT

OR, NOT

or, not, adj., near, before, far

or, not

Phrase search

Quotation marks

Quotations marks

Quotation marks

Quotation marks

Quotation marks

Truncation

No, use *

No

No, ? for one right-hand letter; * for left-hand

No

Automatic

Case sensitive

Yes

No

Yes

No

No

Words included

Use +

Use +

Use +

Use +

Use +

Word elimination

Use -

Use -

Use -

Use -

Use -

Duplicate detection

Grouped under one title

Yes

Grouped under one title

Yes

Yes

Special features

Limit by date, language, or format field followed by a colon

Concept searching suggests terms

Limit by date, language, location, page depth

Search for image and sound files

Custom folders

AltaVista

Excite

Google

HotBot

Lycos

Northern Light