Like in boxing, there are many claims to the crown. FAST Search says they've completely indexed 575 million pages, while Google comes in with some 1.3 billion completely or partially indexed. Likewise, Inktomi (which powers the search tools of some 100 portals, like HotBot, NBCi, and iWon) brags of about 1 billion pages, and Northern Light weighs in 315 million Web pages.

But with search engines, as in many other arenas, size isn't everything. The problem with equating size with quality is that it doesn't matter if a site has indexed 5 kajillion pages if it hasn't indexed the ones you're looking for. That's important, since new studies show that the average surfer can only handle about 12 minutes of searching before he or she goes bonkers with - I kid you not - "search rage."

That's why some surfers prefer directories as opposed to search engines. Instead of using software to index the web, directories (like Yahoo) use good old-fashioned wetware -people - to seek out and find worthy Web sites.

But the smartest search engine strategy is to use a combination of the two, depending on their individual strengths. Yahoo is excellent when you want to know what the best resources are in a given category (like, say Almanacs), or if you want to quickly find a neatly organized set of links to one topic (like, say, state government sites), whereas Northern Light excels with something like 50 million pages of business information that's not generally available via the Web. while Google offers searches for pages in different languages, as well as specialized searches for university, Linux, or government topics, and Alta Vista has well organized multimedia search tools for graphics, MP3s and video.

Of course now that you know each one of these engines is ever-so-slightly different from one another, you may be more confused than you were when you started. Luckily you can keep up with search engines and directories by checking in with Search Engine Watch, where owner Danny Sullivan posts everything there is to know about which search engines are out there, how they rank against each other, and the best way to use them. The elegantly named Tara Calishain is the force behind ResearchBuzz, which covers the world of Internet research with constant updates on search engines, browser technology, Web directories, specialized Web sites and much more. Since both Search Engine Watch and ResearchBuzz offer free newsletters that have as much useful info as Washington DC has lobbyists, I strongly suggest subscribing to them - these guys are the Murderer's Row of search brains. ***Special to Rose: The Web is teeming with "odd news" sites and newsletters, like Yahoo's own Oddly Enough, where you'll see scores of stories Tom Brokaw won't touch, like "Sacrificial Sheep Shoves Man to His Death" and "An Invasion of Apes?" One of my guilty pleasures is a free newsletter called Bizarre Police Chronicles, which gives the 411 on bizarre 911 calls (e.g., the lady reporting an alligator in her basement - in Michigan), strange laws ("The act of gargling in public is against state law in Louisiana"), weird crimes (like the elementary school principal who was a hit-and-run pooper on people's lawns), plus more cop jokes than a season's worth of Law and Order. Maybe this is why Jack Webb was trying so hard to keep a straight face all these years.