Meta-seach engines

Harry Munir Behrens (behrens@mtl.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp)
Sun, 05 May 1996 01:07:08 +0900


Hello,

I have been following the discussion concerning meta-search engines
for a while now.
Do the big search engines (altavista, lycos, excite etc.) post information
about their query interface or is it all trial-and-error for each and every
search engine?

E.g.:
1. Some of them might be using GET methods wheras others might use POST.
2. Each one offers different switches and different query languages.

So if I were contemplating writing a meta-search engine, do I have to
go out there and play with the input pages of each search engine or is
that kind of info available somewhere?

Harry "Munir Basha" Behrens Tel.: +81-3-3812-2111 #6752
PhD candidate +81-3-3814-4251 #6763
Tanaka Lab
Dept. of Electrical Engineering e-mail: behrens@mtl.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp
University of Tokyo