Which are the 'Major' search engines/directories today?

Opinions please

[namniboose]

With the demise of HotBot and Alta Vista, which search engines/directories do you all consider 'Major' today? Please include your list of future contenders too.

[makemetop]

>With the demise of HotBot and Alta Vista..

I know they may not be the most popular - but not dead, surely!

In reply:

SEs:

Inktomi
FAST
Google
Teoma
Wisenut?

Directories:

Yahoo
ODP
L£ UK
Lycos UK
Business.com (for link pop)

That's about it!

Now, there are major portals like MSN and AOL - but are they search engines in their own right? Probably not - their results are served from the above - so (IMHO) those are the ones that really count.

[dvduval]

Google, Yahoo, MSN, and AOL represent over 90% of the traffic in the US (IMO).

[Knowles]

yahoogle --> increases Googles share
Aolomi? (Inktomi) --> increases Inktomis share
Who serves MSN?

So with the example above with 90% it would be Google Inktomi and (who ever serves MSN) leaving the other 10% to the other SEs?

[namniboose]

I'll rephrase my question: after Google, Yahoo, MSN & AOL (LS & Inktomi), which ones would you still include in your list of 'Majors'?

There used to be a 'Top 12' that SEOs referred to - does it still exist and if so, who would you include?

>With the demise of HotBot and Alta Vista..
I guess I used the wrong word - I just meant they have gone downhill!

[dvduval]

After the top 4, I would include (in this order; for the US):
Altavista 4.22%
Lycos 1.74%
Ask Jeeves 1.26%
Direct Hit 1.16%
Dogpile 1.12%
LookSmart 1.06%
I gave the percent of traffic these provided for the year next to them. But my question is, why bother with any of these? If the top 4 are listing you well, it's pretty likely that these will, too.

[fathom]

Market depend.

Google overall at top
yahoo overall at top 2nd

MSN general audience 3rd but ravels Google and Yahoo in niche segments

AOL top in Education - with schools, admin and teachers, researching and procuring resources and top over the above (at least in North America)

Ask Jeeves is extremely popular with elementary and middle school students which also extends to parents (child web safe content)

AllTheWeb is an oddball right now but their crawl and dance speed is sure help get them in the running.

IMO DMOZ.org is the most important from a purely "research" perspective and a webmasters dream directory.