The hidden truth behind search engines?? Well most of the big search engines, actuall buy there web search information via applications they run on their servers, that query the big guys. For example,, Yahoo use to only have there one search engine stuff, and now that content has moved to their "Directory" listing, but there WEB SEARCH feature is now powered by GOOGLE. So why waste time going to yahoo and be destractided by ads and portal features? Just go to google.com! Below is a list of who is in cahoots with who, this often changes, and some search engines use mulitple sources.

Basicly the big main guys are:
google.com inktomi.com alltheweb.com infospace.com overture.com

Personaly i would NEVER USE A SEARCH ENGINES THAT REQUIRES YOU TO PAY TO HAVE YOUR SITE LISTED THERE well only FOR PROFIT sites will PAY right?? and most profit site often dont have good content! So here is the search engines i recomeend you use that are free for peeps to submit to:

#1 dmoz.org USES REAL PEOPLE that look at each site before adding it
#2 google.com
#3 alltheweb.com
#4 altavistia.com

NOW WHAT DO I DO WHEN I WANT TO FIND SOMETHING??
I use Copernic Search Engine Software that checks all these guys at one time.. look in the software section of this site.

COMAPAIRSION OF SEARCH ENGINES
  SEARCH ENGINE POWERED BY URL TO SUBMIT TO AS OF 11/14/02  
  yahoo.com google http://www.google.com/addurl.html  
  looksmart inktomi http://ink.ineedhits.com/  
  dmoz.org dmoz.org http://dmoz.org/add.html  
  aol.com google http://www.google.com/addurl.html  
  mns.com msn & teoma for 10 POPULAR (looksmart to add url) http://ink.ineedhits.com/  
  excite.com google,looksmart-inktomi-askjeeves http://www.google.com/addurl.html  
  alltheweb.com alltheweb http://www.alltheweb.com/add_url.php  
  fastsearch alltheweb http://www.alltheweb.com/add_url.php  
  google.com google http://www.google.com/addurl.html  
  metacrawler.com infospace (ah-ha to submit) http://www.ah-ha.com/list/list_addurl.asp  
  northernlight.com northernlight.com http://northernlight.com  
  dogpile.com infospace (ah-ha to submit) http://www.ah-ha.com/list/list_addurl.asp  
  hotbot.com fastsearch http://www.hotbot.lycos.co.uk/submit.html  
  lycos.com fastsearch http://www.hotbot.lycos.co.uk/submit.html  
  go.com overture http://overture.com  
  about.com about http://about.com  
  ah-ha.com ah-ha http://www.ah-ha.com/list/list_addurl.asp  
  askjeeves.com askjeeves.com ($30 per URL) http://ask.ineedhits.com/  
  icqsearch.com google.com http://www.google.com/addurl.html  
  iwon.com google.com http://www.google.com/addurl.html  
  jayde.com jayde (free!) http://search.jayde.com/cgi-bin/addurl.cgi?  
  kanoodle.com kanoodle bid for location http://knoodle.com  
  netscape.com google http://www.google.com/addurl.html  
  overture.com overture - Inktomi powered (sell top 6 guys) http://ink.ineedhits.com/  
  wisenut.com zeal (looksmart) http://ink.ineedhits.com/  
  altavista.com altavista.com http://addurl.altavista.com/addurl/new  
  compuserve.com AOL http://www.google.com/addurl.html  
  teoma.com teoma (askjeeves,ineedhits,google) http://teoma.com  
  web crawler infospace (ah-ha to submit) http://www.ah-ha.com/list/list_addurl.asp  
  Inktomi intomi (paid submit via reseller ineedhits $39) http://ink.ineedhits.com/  
  Findwhat findwhat (pay per click) http://findwhat.com  
  infospace.com ah-ha http://www.ah-ha.com/list/list_addurl.asp