When you need information, which search engine do you use? According to spammers, who are quite willing to submit your site for a fee, there are over 700. But do you really need them all?

Now that every major media corporation has their own search engine, deciding which one to use can be more daunting that resolving a committee decision on pizza toppings.

Everyone has an opinion based on personal preference, but only a few opinions are based on actual search tests.

PC Magazine Labs recently conducted just such a test and evaluated issues such as relevancy, accuracy, duplication, timeliness and a dead links.

After testing all the majors, they settled on just three:

• http://www.hotbot.com
• http://www.northernlight.com
• http://www.yahoo.com

You don't have to abandon your favorite search engine, but you might want to give one of these a try!

It's also worth noting that with the explosive growth of the web, even the top engines keep up with just 16% of the Internet, and many of the big names categorize well under 10%.

It seems that even computers are subject to information overload!

The lesson: just because you can't find exactly what you want with any one engine, that doesn't mean the information isn't out there; so try another!

As as far as submitting your site goes, you would do well just to submit it to the top three, but certainly, no more than the top ten.

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