anastasia:me too,I'm a google lab member,got into it via mensa..long story..anyway..as most people know,there are many types of searches..many search engines better for a specific purpose.
I used to keep a list of specialized search engines,still do.
but now I used this list as a customized list of search engines to use via Copernic Agent 6.12,setup with Copernic Tracker 1.1.
see:
http://www.copernic.com/
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some examples of some search engine types & the best ones in its class:
clustered search engines:
http://vivisimo.com/
http://clusty.com/
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image search engines:
images.google.com/
http://www.alltheweb.com/?cat=img&cs=utf8&q=&rys=0&itag=crv&_sb_lang=pref
www.picsearch.com/
www.altavista.com/image/default
www.ditto.com/
multimedia.lycos.com/