# Search Engine Interfaces

## Donny Smith

Reviews of Internet search engines tend to concentrate on popularity or on sheer numbers of results (see, for instance, the Search Engine Ratings and Reviews section of Search Engine Watch), on the results' apparent relevance to search queries (see the literature review in Tang and Sun), or on the programming that make the results possible (and in many cases the underlying search machinery is the same for different search interfaces; see the Who Powers Whom? chart in Sullivan). If the reviews discuss interfaces, they concentrate on input features made possible by new programming (see Online magazine's monthly "Search Engines" column). This review will present a few of the search interfaces currently available and briefly analyze the rhetorical limitations of input and output displays.

### Interfaces Discussed:

- 3D Model Search http://shape.cs.princeton.edu/search.html
- Belmont Abbey College Scholastica http://belmont.antarctica.net/
- Blobworld http://elib.cs.berkeley.edu/photos/blobworld/start.html
- Drexel Historic Costume Collection http://digimuse.cis.drexel.edu/search.jsp
- EBSCOhost http://search.epnet.com (requires subscription)
- Goo http://www.goo.ne.jp/
- Google http://www.google.com
- Internet Public Library Ask a Question http://www.ipl.org/div/askus/
- Kartoo http://www.kartoo.com/
- LexisNexis Academic http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe (requires subscription)
- Meet Me at Hot or Not http://meetme.hotornot.com/
- Mooter http://www.mooter.com/
- Paige http://elab.vanderbilt.edu/about/Verbot/
- QBIC http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/fcgi-bin/db2www/qbicSearch.mac/qbic?selLang=English
- Query by Appearance of Butterfly (Chinese) http://turing.csie.ntu.edu.tw/ncnudlm/query_visual_bi/index.htm
- Query by Appearance of Butterfly (English) http://turing.csie.ntu.edu.tw/ncnudlm/query_visual_bi/index_en.htm
- Question Master Biographical Module http://skipper.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/jrichardson/html/FirstQUEST/
- Ramona http://www.kurzweilai.net/ramona/top.php?nolfx=1
- SIMPLIcity http://wang16.ist.psu.edu/cgi-bin/zwang/regionsearch_show.cgi
- Teoma http://www.teoma.com/
- Yahoo Alerts http://alerts.yahoo.com/
- Yahoo Image Search http://search.yahoo.com/images

| ### Introduction |
### Analysis | ## Input & Output | ### Examples
| ### Works Cited |