"link:" searches

[Isidro F. Aguillo]

Steve Harter wrote:

> Dear colleagues:  I'm trying to find the "best" search engine to do
> "link:"  searches -- to retrieve the Web pages that link to a given URL.
> I know that Alta Vista, Hotbot, and Infoseek all do "link:"  searches.
> Does anyone know if there are others?
>
> As an aside, the strange results noted by others for Alta Vista in recent
> posts also exist for Alta Vista "link:" searches, which is one reason I'm
> evaluating other engines as well.  Also, the three mentioned engines
> retrieve significantly different pages, with Infoseek retrieving far fewer
> than the other two.

Dear Dr. Harter:

    I have similar "strange" results for that engines. I launched the
following strategy
                link:"www.cordis.lu"
against Altavista (Advanced), Hotbot and Infoseek and I used
                "www.cordis.lu"
for Excite and Northern Light. During this month I obtained the following
numbers:

                ALTAV    HOTB    EXCT   INFS   NLGH

Feb-2           16031    15858    1791    4559    2277
    3              17365    15858    1791    4554    2277
    4              17013    15855    1791    4559    2277
    5              16973    15857        46    4556    2277
    6              17503    15855    1115    4549    2277
    9              13958    15854    1115    4544    2294
    10            14825    15853    1115    4618    2299
    11            14770    15856    1115    4618    2229
    12            14792    15858    1115    4617    2327
    13            14754    15858    1802    4617    2327
    16            14158    15858    1802    4602    2327
    17            14271    15855    1802    4596    2327
    19            15312    15477        -      4582    2327
    20            14459    15478    2317    4581    2327

    I intended to use engines to describe presence of S&T institutions in the
Web and their impact. Unfortunately almost all engines are very "unstable" for
that aim. Suggestions welcomed.

    Best regards,

*********************************************************************************

Isidro F. AGUILLO
 -----------------
Editor Cybermetrics
http://www.cindoc.csic.es/cybermetrics/cybermetrics.html

isidro at cindoc.csic.es
CINDOC-CSIC
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