Search Engines
Directories
Searches
Directories
Directories are search engines that index sites by the categories that they fit in. Most search engines now include a directory, but not of the quality listed here. Usually a site has to be approved by an administrator before it is listed in a directory.Yahoo!
Yahoo! was the first directory to come into being. It is also the most widely known and used. Not only this, it also contains games, weather, free email, and many other services now.
The Open Directory
The Open Directory is the first "user edited" directory. Instead of having system adminsitrators approving sites, users that sign up as editors approve and reject sites. This makes site indexing a lot faster in most cases, but does not affect anything from the searcher point of view.
Searches
Normal searches use bots to index and rate sites for them. Although this is faster and easier for the search engine, it is also less reliable. I am not going to include a description since they are all the same from the searcher's point of view.HotBot
Excite
GO/Infoseek
MSN Search
WebCrawler