I just visited one of the best search engines I've seen in a long time -
Snap.com, and I've seen a lot. There's of course Google, Yahoo, Ask and other small time engines like Mamma, Dogpile, Altavista. All of them with their own merits. No offense to Larry and Serge (you are still adorable). But this just takes the cake.
First thing you notice is that when you type in a search query, a series of suggested terms drop down related to what you're looking for. And a tab at the side allows you to see the top headlines around the world.
The visuals are amazing. Presentation of search results appear in 2 columns, text and ranking on the left then on the right you see the homepage in real time and just like on a preview pane of Outlook. So you don't have to leave your search results while you get to view individual pages.
Settings include Adult content warning, viewing website results on existing page or new browser, and keyword suggestions.
Developed by one of the pioneers in the search engine industry, Bill Gross also started Goto.com which was Overture - still is, just now part of Yahoo SM. Snap partners with a lot of sites like Ask, X1, Quotemedia, Gigablast, Smarter, Dmoz, Moreover, and Marchex. More for content I guess than anything else, this makes their database more comprehensive.
Being new has it's benefits, they have a feedback button that welcomes comments. It's just about a year old so there's bound to be some bugs. One I've noticed is that it takes some time to register a new search query. Heard it's no good on dial-up internet connections too. For a more indepth review, check out this link
http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/10625.asp.
Anyway, it's certainly something I'd use.
