What is the purpose of those websites that are merely bogus search directories?
92584
The top 3 reasons are:\n1)To get the sites listed on these directories to move higher up in the rankings of the search results of legitimate search engine sites. Often people pay companies to help their site get better search engine placement; these companies in turn have numerous site like this to help them make good on that promise.\nWhy would that help? Most search engines (particularly Google) have as one of the many variables that factor into the rankings in the search results the number of references to that page. The assumption is that the more citations a particular site gets with respect to a particular subject, the more important/relevant the site must be.\n2) All throughout the web there are numerous companies that have what are called "revenue-share" or commission systems. The goal of these systems is to drive traffic to a particular site. The links themselves often have additional query string params that indicate the source, or more often the referring page is part of the standard header sent when the user clicks on that link. The destination site then pays the referrer, these "bogus directories", a sum of money for each click thru or referrer. Usually the fee is only payed for every 1000 referrals, or perhaps if the referred user actual buys something on that site.\n3) It happens, but much less often than the other 2 reasosns, it is nefarious individuals wanting to deposit viruses, trojan horses, or other dubious content on your computer.
47457
Try another search engine.
898249
Just search whatever you want in GOOGLE
588720
See these sites, search them for what you need
31226
They are small files that websites save on a user's computer to identify that user, they can be used to store what ads you have seen/clicked on or what your preferences are for a particular site
229339
search the web and check them for authenticity, cross-referencing them with one another. there's a lot of misinformation going around as well.
774183
Search engines rely on people asking their websites be included, and on spiders. \nSpider technology is rather simple. The "spider" crawls along the web, always looking for new sites, and pages linked to a given site. These are then recorded. That is why literally hundereds or thousands of sites may be returned on a simple inquiry.\nAlso as someone else mentioned, links to other search engines and sites listing various other sites can come up in internet search results. And yes, to me, they are a pain in the ar*se.
159633
Is this website of any use?
98684
What's the point!\nhumans will still keep asking the same questions again and again instead of searching the database.\n\ndatabase and search engines are usefull to its potential only for computer wizards!
172846
Google isn't the only search engine to have done this. The government has requested that same info from other ones as well, Yahoo included. Plus it's not a constant thing, it's random samplings. In fact, google was the last to do it, and they were in the news for not doing it.
15304
MyWebSearch is spyware.  Get rid of it.
790723
you may have downloaded something onto the machine to stop it from working correctly if you can use default search engines.\n\n\nI can use mine without a shaddow of a doubt you need try do a spyware check or virus check that you can and then remove something it sounds like a time for a spybot mission on your computer...\n\n\nThats assuming that you have that running on your machine...
1093452
they make there business based on their location, so a website doesn't make any sense for them. they probably have one anyway.
717289
i keep wondering, what r search engines for? u wasted ur 5 points, u could have searched for them!
235522
Because he probably filled out info like junk ads and stuff and then got placed on internet listings.  I wouldn't advise it, because it will only cause a lot of junk and clutter to suddenly converge in your life.
904627
What you need to look for is a directory, not a search engine.  A directory categorizes sites:\n\nhttp://www.dmoz.org/\nhttp://www.google.com/dirhp <-Google's directory\n\nYahoo also has a directory search option at the top of their home page.
351142
go here, it tells you how to in allthe popular search engines\nhttp://searchenginewatch.com/facts/article.php/2156041\nit is public knowledge what things people are searching for and how many, not illegal, just depends on whether the server wants to bother keeping a list