Lycos is
one of the oldest search engines. Lycos was originally developed at Carnegie
Mellon University to calculate the size of the web using a "spider" robot program
that walked around the Internet from site to site
through page links.
The name Lycos comes from Lycosidae, the scientific name for the "wolf spider".
Wolf spiders are excellent hunters that catch their prey by running after
it instead of catching it in a web. They are named "wolf" spiders because
people once mistakenly thought that they hunted in packs.
The original key Lycos search features are listed below, however Lycos now
outsources its search engine so the range of features can change.
Search
Features |
Function |
Example |
Results |
Boolean |
space
and mars |
both "space" and "mars" |
|
space
or mars |
"space" or "mars" |
|
space
and (mars or venus) |
"space" and
either "mars" or "venus". Always put brackets
around OR keywords connected to AND |
|
space
and not mars |
space,
but no pages with "mars" |
|
+space
+mars -venus |
"space" and "mars" but
not "venus" - not recommended - use "space
and mars and not venus" instead |
Wildcard |
space
and music* |
space
and music, musical, musician, etc. |
Phrases |
electric
and "fastest space" |
includes
phrase "fastest space" |
Language |
zéro |
only
French language word "zéro" |
Letter
Case |
EFF |
only
capitalized "EFF" |
|
eff |
both "eff" and "EFF" |
History. The following features were historically
available but no longer function.
Search Features |
Function |
Example |
Results |
Boolean |
race
adj car |
"race" adjacent
to "car" in either order - "race car" or "car race" |
|
race near car |
"race" within 25 words of "car" |
|
race near/2 car |
"race" within 2 words of "car" |
|
race onear/3 car |
"race" ordered near (before) "car" within
3 words |
|
race far car |
"race" at least 25 words away from "car" |
|
race far/2 car |
"race" at least 2 words away from "car" |
|
race ofar/3 car |
"race" at least 3 words ordered far from
(before) "car" |
Other Boolean |
race oadj car |
"race" ordered adjacent (before) "car",
same as "near" |
|
race adj/2 car |
"race" up to 2 words before "car", same
as "onear/2" |
|
race oadj/3 car |
"race" ordered adjacent (before) "car" within
3 words, same as "onear/3" |
|
race before car |
"race" before "car", same as "onear" |