| Approach | % | Traits | Usage |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12% | Fast and often very high quality results. Displays items that designers of web pages like. Best for things that can be "named" (such as most diseases) | First choice, esp. for stable pages | |
| EBIG | < 1 % | Good for finding information about a topic, such as wine selection. | Popular general topics. |
| Alta Vista or Northern Light | 16% | Good for finding pages that have key words in them. | Searching by a keyword. |
| AllTheWeb | 90%+ | New, claims to have everything. | When all else fails. |
%: estimated %ge of theIndexable (unrestricted access) accessible web covered by the service. The total web is much larger than this.