Web Secret #152: Five Search Engine Alternatives

I'll admit it, when I am doing an Internet search - I always go to Google first. It's been that way for many years.

But when the search gets more challenging, there are some new alternatives worth checking out. Thank you Website Magazine for the info.

1. Blekko - Haven't checked it out yet? Read my post. Since I wrote that post, January 2011 numbers indicated an average of 1 million queries per day.

2. DuckDuckGo - Gosh, I don't care what this website does, I just love their name. I'll let Website Magazine explain, "...it gives users the most relevant information on websites and search terms without having to click on search results. Local business listings from Yelp, word definitions from The Free Dictionary, Wikipedia entries and content from 13 additional sites are some examples of information users can find."

3. Greplin - Sounds like a character in a Harry Potter film. Instead, this website searches and indexes social media and other resources such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Gmail, Google Docs, Evernote, and more.

4. Wajam - No, it's not a tribe from Survivor. Wajam is a socially driven search tool, but unlike Greplin it returns results as part of your experience with Google, Safari, Firefox, Chrome, IE or Bing. Where Greplin searches only the applications that have been preauthorized by the user, Wajam searches the entire Web but with an emphasis on returning personalized results from Facebook, Twitter and other social sites the user has bookmarked. It injects these social results into the search queries submitted to larger engines.

5. Quora - A continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organized by everyone who uses it. It strives to be the definitive answer site for just about any topic on the web. It is largely human driven, and invites users to ask questions, provide answers and share their knowledge and comments. Questions are organized into different categories that can also be created by users, leading to a wide range and growing index of topical information.

I need a new computer monitor and don't know which one to buy - think I will put these 5 to the test...