Assessment and Comparison of Search capabilities of Web-based Meta-Search Engines: A Checklist Approach

The present investigation concerns evaluation, comparison and analysis of search options existing within web-based meta-search engines. 64 meta-search engines were identified. 19 meta-search engines that were free, accessible and compatible with the objectives of the present study were selected. An author’s constructed check list was used for data collection. Findings indicated that all meta-search engines studied used the AND operator, phrase search, number of results displayed setting, previous search query storage and help tutorials. Nevertheless, none of them demonstrated any search options for hypertext searching and displaying the size of the pages searched. 94.7% support features such as truncation, keywords in title and URL search and text summary display. The checklist used in the study could serve as a model for investigating search options in search engines, digital libraries and other internet search tools.