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SEO (SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION)ARTICLES
Search Toolbars, Taskbars Ease Research
Fine-tune Web Research with Toolbars
Part I
Toolbar - what is it?
In most cases, a toolbar is like a main menu-bar
residing alongside in popular browsers, usually
Microsoft's Internet Explorer. The toolbar is termed
so because while surfing the net, it provides a
viewer many options that aim at bringing focus to
and fine-tune browsing. Toolbars of various hues
are available free of cost, including one from Google,
though there're some like Internet Research Toolbar,
who offer toolbars at a cost.
Does toolbar help?
For people who believe information is invaluable,
a toolbar is of great help. Nobody denies there
is a wealth of information available on the world-wide-web.
Yet, to many, getting preciseinformation is more
often than not a frustrating experience. If you
think search engine is the only answer to your online
queries, think again. The fact is search engines
do provide *searching* answers, but perhaps you
need some more....something more accurate and relevant.
That is to say, you'd need to fine-tune your searches
again and again. And this is where the toolbars
come as great help. Toolbars do not eliminate the
pain of searching....No, it only assists in cutting
down your browsing time so you can devote more time
to do what you want to with the information collected.
There is a subtle difference in the working of various
toolbars. Thus, while search toolbars enable searching
in your favorite search engines directly, meta search
utilities allow searching multiple search engines
simultaneously. In today's story, we'll explore
about 10 toolbars of repute and the *tools* each
of them offer. In the next issue, 8 more toolbars
will be discussed.
Hopefully, questions like *Do I need a toolbar?*,
*Is there a toolbar for me?*, *Which toolbar offers
the most?*, etc. will get resolved to one's satisfaction.
Teoma
SearchBar
Dynamically upgradable (meaning, new features are
automatically upgraded), Teoma Search Bar offers
direct search results from Teoma search engine.
Other than allowing dictionary look-up and ability
to highlight search terms (different colors for
different words / word combinations) in the search
pages, Teoma Search Bar also provides for easy e-mailing
the search page with the click of a button.
AskJeeves
Toolbar
Like Teoma, AskJeeves Toolbar too is dynamically
upgradable. There are many tools on offer, such
as Search Ask (Ask Jeeves search results), Search
News (news headlines), Search Weather, Search Dictionary,
Get Map (of any location within USA), etc. Highlighting
search terms and emailing search page too are available.
Groowe
Toolbar
http://www.pagetracer.com/
Now with version 1.2 (June 4, 2003), Groowe toolbar
is proving a popular choice. Query your term fast
and easy in many search engines and directories,
viz. Google, Yahoo, AllTheWeb, MSN, Teoma, AltaVista
and more. Browse categories and directories of search
engines with minimum fuss. Image search, audio search,
video search --and what not-- are all provided by
Groowe as also options to search jobs, downloads
and shopping sites. A very helpful toolbar indeed.
UltraBar
IE Toolbar
UltraBar offers 3 versions, one free, the other
two paid versions, namely UltraBar Co-Brand and
Ultrabar Private Label. UltraBar has many similarities
with Google Toolbar, like highlighting search terms,
jumping to selected search term, etc. The UltraBar
options is a good tool. One can add more search
engines than what are presently offered, and change
the appearance of toolbar buttons as well.
Yahoo!
Companion
Companion allows toolbar to be personalized with
one's favorite Yahoo! services and also providing
supports like searching Yahoo!, Yahoo! mail alert,
etc.
SearchHippo
Toolbar
Meant for IE, SearchHippo Toolbar offers *HipRank*,
which is akin to Google's PageRank or Alexa's Traffic
Rank. HipRank provides values within 0 to 100 range,
higher values for a webpage meaning higher traffic
levels. The toolbar allows customization and also
offers SMS messaging that permits sending a webpage
straight from browser to your friends' phone, pager,
or email. SearchHippo says in the US the toolbar's
*SMS* facility automatically converts friends' phone
numbers into their carrier and location.
Dave's
Quick Search Deskbar
Dave's QSD is in fact an add-on for Windows Desktop
Taskbar, that allows quick search in most important
search engines and has useful built-in tools like
a clock, calculator, currency converter, calendar,
translation facility and more. The toolbar is available
at SourceForge under GPL and allows adding own functionality.
In fact, HotBot Quick Search Deskbar is based on
Dave's
Quick Search Deskbar.
Googlebar
Mozdev's Googlebar levels the playing field in that
it emulates Google's toolbar for Netscape/Mozilla
browsers. Mozdev also provides emulation
of Yahoo! Companion toolbar in Mozilla .
Alexa
Toolbar
One of our favorites is Alexa Toolbar. Alexa provides
search results in Google search engine only, but
other toolbar features are quite helpful. For example,
for any website being seen in the browser, Alexa
instantly provides its traffic rank (which in fact
is 3 months average). Clicking the link will take
to Alexa's webpage where more details about the
website are available, including incoming links,
more traffic information and much much more. Another
good about Alexa toolbar is its showing links to
some more websites that are similar to the one being
presently viewed. Highly recommended.
Google
Toolbar
Arguably the most-used of its type, Google Toolbar
is operable only in IE browsers and available in
many languages. The Toolbar Options allow customizing
the layout of toolbar as one wishes. Among many
features Google Toolbar offers are Google Search,
Search Site, PageRank, Page Info and Word Find.
Page Info shows links that connect to the webpage
being viewed as also similar other webpages, besides
a cached snapshot of the webpage. Full detail about
Google
Toolbar, view the help page .
PCWorld
has provided a good analysis about searching in
Google In
the article, *Maximum Google* including
information on Google Toolbar. All in all, a Google
Toolbar is a must-have for fine-tuning search options.
_________________________________________________________
Partha Bhattacharya is the author of this and other
web design and promotion articles. Bhattacharya
owns and operates EzyPost.Com offering pre-designed
elegant website templates for only $7.99 and also
offers website designing and promotion tips. To
know more, visit http://www.ezypost.com/
or send an email to ezypost@rediffmail.com.
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