Lycos Top 5 per cent
Lycos Top 5 per cent consists of reviewed sites in fairly broad subject categories. Sites seem to be chosen mainly on their individual merits rather than as part of an effort to cover all aspects of a topic.
If you search Lycos Top 5 per cent by keyword, some of the sites you retrieve may have nothing to do with your subject, since they need only contain your search word.
Community Guides
You'll find recommended sites divided into more detailed subject categories in the Community Guides. However, these listings include only the titles of web pages and their URL's.
These recommended sites are ranked by community ratings which are arrived at by tallying Lycos users' opinions. I don't think I'm being overly skeptical to wonder how legitimate some of the ratings are since there doesn't seem to be any protection against entering multiple votes.
Among Lycos's other special features are a helpful city guide, with information and maps for cities worldwide, stock and company data finders, a well-organized, up-to-date directory of classified ads, and moderated chat rooms on various subjects. I sampled the archives of a chat centering on a discussion with a novelist, and found it literate and interesting.
How To Search In Lycos
Lycos is an especially appropriate search engine for newcomers to the Internet because you can do fairly precise searches using menus and a minimum of search syntax.
There's a drop-down box underneath the main search box offering several choices of types of sites to search, for example, the Web, reviewed sites (from the Lycos Top 5 per cent), discussion groups, pictures, and sounds.
For most searches of the Web in general, it's best to start out combining search words in the main search box. For example:
+"Civil War" +clothing
A good way to pinpoint your subject more accurately is to restrict your search to the results you've already gotten by selecting Search these results.
