If you've read my Insider's Secrets Course... or even some of my articles, you know that I am a big believer in doing regular web research. There are a number of reasons why regular web research is necessary.

• To find out where your customers and also your competitors hangout. You can find out what your customers are interested in, their hot buttons and their concerns and problems. In order to sell them, you need to find out where they are and what they want.
  
• To find out what your competitors are up to. What are they doing? What are they selling? What new products are they launching? Find out what they have that you don't... or what you have that they don't! The information you find at your competitors' site is priceless, as it will make or break your business.
  
• To find out what people are saying about you. If someone is badmouthing you, you want to get in there and defend yourself or your products before too much damage can be done. In order to do this, you have to find out what they are saying and who is doing the "saying".
  
• To find out if people are stealing your web content, your articles, your products etc.

Doing web research should not be a one-time or sporadic activity. You should set up a schedule and make sure you check things out on a regular basis. At the Internet Marketing Center, we have an employee who regularly spends time checking out other web sites for competitor activity and copyright violations.

OK... I already know what you are saying... Who has the time!

I can relate... I used to run this business all by myself! At times, it seems like a lifetime ago, but in reality it was only a few short years ago. Time can be a friend or an enemy... and time is one of the reasons I encourage you to automate your business as much as possible.

And doing your research is no different. You can either go to each of the major Search Engines separately... figure out how best to do your research at that particular site... and then type in the same things over and over and over OR you can get smart and use a Meta Search engine, or utility.

Meta Search engines search several other search engines simultaneously, and give you the results in an integrated list..

Meta Search engines can be a real time-saver if you're looking for results in a hurry. Though they can filter results to a certain degree you probably won't ever get results as detailed as you would by using an individual search engine. However... you will get results from 5 or 6 or even 250 search engines all at the same time!

Meta Search engines are a powerful way to search the Web!

To better explain this, let me give you an example. Say you wanted to look up "on-line backup services." You could go to Yahoo.com, GoTo.com, Infoseek.com etc., type in the words "on-line backup services", and at each site you could follow the links. The problem is, if you go to 5 or 6 Search Engines, you will get some results that are exactly the same, and some that are completely different, and you may end up linking to the same sites over and over again. The faster alternative is to use a Meta Search engine. You type in "on-line backup services" once... and the meta-engine will go to Yahoo.com and GoTo.com and Infoseek.com and others for you. It will collect results from all the Search Engines it utilizes and will compile the list for you. You can tell some of the Meta-engines to filter the results and remove all duplicate sites. Then you can start following links right away, or you can store the list to use later.

Most of the Meta-engines are really fast and will start returning results to you much more quickly than a single search engine could. For example, I did a search on the GoTo search engine and waited 15 seconds to get a page of results. I tested the same search using WebFerret and I got back results within one second that I could go through and examine.

There are two different types of Meta Search engines. The first type works similar to the regular Search Engines, where you go to a web site and perform a search from the site. The second type is a software program that resides on your computer. You launch the program from your hard drive and it connects to the Internet and does the search for you.

And by now, it shouldn't surprise you that prices range from free to not-so-free and that the usefulness of the various sites and software also range in price!

The results you get will vary. Though some of the Meta Search engines will return some good results, you will still get irrelevant and weird links, because the Meta Search engines depend on the regular search engines for their results. Some of them are better than others at separating the good from the garbage.

With that said, here are a few Meta Search engines to try out.

First, online "search engine" utilities. You must go to their site and access the search service while there. If you like them, be sure to bookmark them or add them to your favorites.

SavvySearch - http://www.savvysearch.com/ lets you build a single search and then apply your query to multiple search engine sites. You can customize your search by choosing from over a hundred search engines and directories you want SavvySearch to use including Google, HotBot, AltaVista, Lycos, WebCrawler, Yahoo and more. Once you select the one you want to use and enter in your request, just sit back and watch as it tallies up the results in front of your eyes!

Ask Jeeves - http://www.askjeeves.com/ can be dangerous when you have to work … Why? Because it's fun! You enter questions in an honest, real-world "question" format, hit enter and then wait for the results. The fun part is a box that shows you the popular questions other people are asking!

I asked the question "What is a Meta Search utility?" and it came up with four different things that I could have meant by the question... the closest was "What does the computing term Meta Search mean?" Well, I clicked on that, I was directed to a page that went into great detail about Meta Search engines, quoting a lot of the engines mentioned in this article - pretty cool! Not only did I get this information, but there were also links showing the top 10 matches from engines like About.com, Web Crawler, Excite, and AltaVista. This is one of those sites that, if you use it correctly, you can get the quick and definite answers to your questions!

Ask Jeeves for Kids - http://www.ajkids.com/ which is also fun... and at a kid level. Though it returns results with only "G" ratings, they still recommend that you install screening software that prevents kids from accessing web sites that contain adult topics. If you have kids (or if you are one), this is a really great educational tool!

Dogpile - http://www.dogpile.com/ uses over 10 different search engines. The big drawback is that it doesn't eliminate duplicate listings, which is too bad!

Though all of the Meta Search engines listed above can be useful... you will want to seriously consider downloading one of the "software" utilities. I find them to be faster and, because you can easily save and sort results, much more useful. You also don't have to wade through all the stuff and advertising in order to figure out how to do your searches which is a big bonus!

By far one of the most popular Meta Search utilities is WebFerret. Over 4,500,000 people have downloaded the free version... these users are a testament to its usefulness and popularity. It takes only a few minutes to download the free version http://www.ferretsoft.com/netferret/index.html which is fully functional, and more than most web surfers may ever need.

To use WebFerret, enter your search words and choose from four radio buttons: All keywords, Any keyword, Exact phrase, or Boolean Expression. WebFerret will use your Internet connection to check several popular search engines (Alta Vista, AOL NetFind, EuroSeek, Excite, GOTO, Infoseek, LookSmart, Lycos, and Yahoo) and will return the number of links you specify. It lets you determine the closeness of the match, remove duplicates, and filters pornography and foul language. The results are returned in a list that you can sort, and you can use tooltips to give you more information about a listing. To launch a web page, all you have to do is double-click on the link. The free version displays banner ads, which is what helps to keep it free. It's fast and easy to use.

Serious researchers will want to upgrade to WebFerret Pro. The Pro version currently utilizes 33 search engines, and they are adding on new ones all the time. The banner advertising is turned off and there are a few additional enhancements for your money.

WebFerret and WebFerret Pro - http://www.ferretsoft.com/netferret/index.html

Though not nearly as popular as WebFerret (yet), do check out the Copernic 2000 Meta Search software.

They have a free version of the software which simultaneously searches over 55 information sources including AltaVista, Deja.com, Excite, HotBot, Infoseek, Lycos, Magellan, WebCrawler and Yahoo. In addition to a search wizard you can also do a detailed search history and highlight keywords. Copernic 2000 displays a relevancy score for each result and removes duplicates automatically. Search results can be saved and viewed off-line.

Click here to get a free download of Copernic 2000 http://www.copernic.com/

The Copernic 2000 Pro Version - http://www.copernic.com/products/pro/ has lots and lots of add-on features, one of which is a scheduling function that enables you to schedule predetermined searches for times that you will be away from your computer! It should come as no surprise that I really like this feature because I believe the more you can automate routine tasks and functions the better!